Full Treatment Coverage in Burkina Faso
The 2005 campaign was even more ambitious, and just as successful, as it targeted the 9 remaining regions in the country. Burkina Faso is therefore the first of the 3 West African countries, supported by the SCI, to reach their entire target population. This year’s mass treatment campaign targeted 36 health districts constituting a population of 2,543,918 school-aged children.
The PNLSc is now preparing to conduct an evaluation of the programme which will take place in February 2006. |
Between the 18 and 27 October 2005, Burkina Faso’s national schistosomiasis
and soil transmitted helminth control programme (PNLSc) organised the
country’s second mass treatment campaign. The first mass treatment campaign
was held in October 2004 and targeted 19 health districts in 4 priority
regions. The 2004 campaign treated a total of 1,027,007 school-aged children
(between 5 and 15 years old) and reached a coverage rate of 96.76% of those
targeted.
The success of the programmes lies in the fact that the PNLSc staff were
well prepared and had distributed the tablets and treatment materials to the
36 districts, distributed appropriate funds to district representatives, and
launched a targeted IEC campaign by the beginning of August. This
preparation ensured that there was suitable time any organisational,
treatment, and/or financial inquiries to be raised and answered prior to the
campaign launch on the 17th of October.