Community-wide programs can dramatically reduce intestinal worm infections: study

CANBERRA, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The key to reducing the number of children suffering from intestinal worms could be treating adults as well as children, an Australian study has found.

Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) including hookworm, roundworm and whipworm infect 1.5 billion people around the world, primarily children in countries in Africa, the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Researchers from the School of Population Health at Australian National University (ANU) conducted a study in Timor-Leste to test if a community-wide control program was more effective in reducing STH infections than a school-focused program.

The team, led by Suzana Vaz Nery, ran programs in six communities in Timor-Leste.

Three of the communities received only school-based deworming and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs while the other three received community-based de-worming and WASH programs in addition those held in schools.

Results were measured in school-aged children at baseline then again six months after the programs took place.

"The odds of intestinal worm infection more than halved among children in communities that were given a community-wide intervention, compared to the school-based intervention only," Naomi Clarke, a member of the research team, said in a media release on Friday.

Clarke said it was the first evidence from a field trial that community-wide control programs are more effective than school-based programs.

Vaz Nery said that current guidelines for STH control prescribed deworming drugs to children through school-based programs.

"Children from the poorest communities suffer from consequences of infestations, such as poor growth and development, and chronic intestinal blood loss and anaemia in some cases," she said.

"These worms infect some people in remote Indigenous communities in northern Australia, but these infections are not common across Australia." Enditem