More than six million children in lower primary schools in Kenya have been dewormed since 2012, according to Kenya's recently released National School-Based Deworming Programme report.
Kenya's Programme Director Dorothy Onyango for NGO, Deworm the World said, "The effectiveness of deworming has been proven through rigorous research which has been shown to reduce child absenteeism by up to 25%."
The five-year programme which began in 2012 initially aimed to deworm 5.7 million children. To date, 6.4 million children have been dewormed by the Kenya Medical Research Institute across 16,000 primary schools in 28 counties of the country targeting areas with a particularly high worm prevalence including: Nyanza, Western, Rift Valley, Coast, North Eastern and Central.
Why Deworm in Schools?
When children are infected with parasitic worms they are less likely to concentrate in school and suffer from poor health and nutrition. School-based deworming is a cost-effective and safe solution; at a cost of less than 50 cents per child per year the results are both immediate and enduring. Read more about
school-based deworming
