Five million school children receive treatment on mainland Tanzania
Nov-Dec 2005
A mass treatment campaign by teachers and local health workers against
schistosomiasis and intestinal helminths.
 The National Schistosomiasis and Soil-transmitted Helminth Control
Programme (NSSCP), based within the Ministry of Health and collaborating
with the Ministry of Education and Culture, has finally commenced drug
distribution targeting school children on mainland Tanzania. The NSSCP was
launched on 2nd July 2005 by the Prime Minister the Hon. Frederick Sumaye
and the Minister of Health Ms. Anna Abdallah, in the hope that treatment
would start shortly after. The November treatment sees the culmination of a
year of preparatory activities which have been carried out in both coastal
and western Tanzania, including disease risk mapping, baseline data
collection and training. The campaign is expected to reach 5 million
school-age children in the areas with the highest burden of disease
throughout November and December 2005, each child receiving an appropriate
dosage of praziquantel for schistosomiasis (40 mg/kg body weight) and a
single dose of albendazole (400 mg) for intestinal helminths.
The targeted regions for this round of mass drug administration include
Mara, Mwanza, Kagera, Kigoma, Shinyanga and Tabora around Lake Victoria, in
the West of Tanzania, and Lindi, Mtwara, Pwani, Tanga and Dar es Salaam
along the Indian Ocean coast in the East.
 During September and October 2005, specially designed container bags were
prepared and filled with all the tools for drug distribution, including the
praziquantel height dose pole, health education materials, treatment
registers etc. One bag was delivered to each school taking part in the
treatment programme even though many were located in some of the most remote
areas in Tanzania. The correct quantities of the drugs, praziquantel (PZQ)
and albendazole (ALB) were delivered to each District Headquarters by the
National Medical Stores, and these were then distributed to every targeted
school. Over 12 million tablets of praziquantel and 5 million tablets of
albendazole were moved, including 4 million PZQ tablets manufactured by two
Tanzanian pharmaceutical companies; Shelys, Dar es Salaam and TPI, Arusha.
This is the first time SCI has used local companies for drug production and
it is hoped that this will become a sustainable source of drugs for the
programme in the future.
Additionally, 5.7 million of the PZQ tablets were donated by the
pharmaceutical company MedPharm through the support of World Health
Initiatives based in Canada and SCI and the Tanzanian Government
gratefully acknowledge their support.
 Teachers from every school in the selected districts needed to receive
advance training on all aspects of this mass deworming and anti
schistosomiasis campaign. The Regional and District School Health
Coordinators played a key role and led cascaded training and social
mobilisation throughout the districts to the ward and school levels in
preparation for this school-based delivery of drugs to the children.
Teachers received information about how the children were getting infected,
the effects of infections, the disease consequences in later life, how
treatment should be delivered, possible mild side effects and how to deal
with them, and the importance of taking some food before taking the drugs.
Treatment is conducted in each school by the school teachers and in the
presence of the local health workers, school committee and local district
authorities and is expected to be complete by mid December. Photos |
