Title
Governance, organization, accountability and sustainability of a region-wide school-based deworming program in Loreto, Peru
Date Issued
01 July 2016
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Rodriguez Ferrucci H.
Rahme E.
Ault S.
Blouin B.
Mofid L.S.
Montresor A.
Gyorkos T.W.
Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
Publisher(s)
Elsevier B.V.
Abstract
Chau Cuica was the name given by the regional government of Loreto in Peru for its school-based deworming program which was initiated in 2012 with a donation of mebendazole from an international non-governmental organization. Embedded in the program from the start was a sentinel surveillance component which consisted of 16 sentinel schools representing Loreto's seven provinces. Coverage rates varied between 35% and 61% over the first two years of the program (and seven deworming cycles). Initial prevalences of soil-transmitted helminth infections were high, with 82.4% of schoolchildren having at least one infection and prevalences of both Ascaris lumbricoides and Trichuris trichiuraTrichuris trichiura infections both exceeding 60%. After two years, these prevalences had dropped to 56% for any STH infection, 38% for A. lumbricoides and 34% for T. trichiura. Importantly, the proportions of children with moderate and heavy infections also dropped. Both the regional Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education were jointly charged to implement this deworming program. The program's costs were estimated to be approximately 22 cents (USD) per child per deworming cycle. The responsibility for the surveillance component was initially undertaken by research partners from a local NGO and a Canadian university, which transferred gradually over the course of the deworming program to being entirely the responsibility of the Ministry of Health. This regional deworming program may serve as a model for other jurisdictions that are planning a school-based deworming program with an integrated surveillance component to monitor impact.
Start page
219
End page
226
Volume
159
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Temas sociales
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84963623313
PubMed ID
Source
Acta Tropica
ISSN of the container
0001706X
Sponsor(s)
Several unique features of this deworming program should be highlighted. First, Chau Cuica began with the seminal event of a large donation of deworming drugs by an international non-governmental organization to the regional government of Loreto. Second, the regional government acted quickly to plan a region-wide deworming program by authorizing a unique joint initiative between its Ministry of Health and its Ministry of Education. Third, because of the close collaboration between the Ministry of Health and a research team in Iquitos (a long-standing research partnership between a local NGO, the Asociacion Civil Selva Amazonica (ACSA), and McGill University), a surveillance component (externally funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) was integrated into the program from the start. Lastly, to optimize the sustainability of the deworming program, the lead responsibility for the surveillance component transferred, over the course of the program’s two years, from the ACSA-McGill partnership to the Ministry of Health. One, or more, of these features would be expected to occur in other settings planning and implementing a large-scale deworming program.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus