DEWORMING ACTIVITY. The Department of Health (DOH) has set every January as National Deworming Month. In the Ilocos Region, the DOH targets to involve 1.6 million children and adolescents aged 1 year to 19 years this year, an official said Tuesday (Jan. 16, 2024). (Photo courtesy of DOH-CHD-1's Facebook page)
DAGUPAN CITY – The Department of Health’s (DOH) Center for Health Development (CHD) 1 (Ilocos Region) is urging parents or guardians to bring their children and adolescents to the nearest health centers or rural health units for deworming this January.
The agency is targeting 1.6 million children and teens aged 1 year to 19 years to deworm for this year, DOH-CHD-1 medical officer Dr. Rheuel Bobis said in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Parasitic worms cause slow physical and mental development, decreased physical activity, poor academic performance, and in worst cases, death among children.
Bobis said the infection may also cause iron deficiency anemia among pregnant women and malnutrition among mother and child.
He said the deworming activity would have community-based and school-based approaches and is done every January and July.
Bobis said in 2023, about 70 percent of the 1-year to 4-year-old population and 40 percent of those 5 years to 19 years were able to have their two-dose medicines.
He said the program faced some challenges because not all students attended classes in schools regularly and there was a lack of deworming drugs.
Thus, he said, the provision of the ancillary drugs for deworming was devolved to the local government units (LGUs) while the DOH-CHD-1 only provides augmentation.
"For this year, we will continue to augment deworming medicines to LGUs and partner with the Department of Education to increase deworming coverage for school-aged children," he added. (PNA)
