Over 3.6 million children were dewormed across 8,200 schools in 2009. The Kenyan Government launched a national program, with total costs at only 36 US cents per child. In addition, over 1,000 district/division-level personnel and over 16,000 teachers across 45 districts were trained during program implementation.
The Kenya National School-based Deworming Program is led by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation and the Kenya Medical Research Institute. Preparations are under way for the next round of deworming, including treatment for both soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomiasis.
| “Worms undermine the health of children and affect their ability to learn. We are committed to the program of deworming children, [but] we still need more help to fight worms in children." – Raila Amolo Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya |
DtW Support for Kenya
DtW provides critical support to the Kenyan Government program by:
- Providing in-depth technical and operational assistance for all programmatic phases, including generating and managing worm prevalence data for strategic program targeting; assisting with the development of work plans, budgets, and implementation schedules; providing general logistical and operational support, including drug distribution; advising on the design and the national training cascade as well as awareness campaigns; and contributing to the collection, entry, and processing of monitoring data.
- Leveraging resources by coordinating strategic support to fill small program gaps. For example, by raising funds to support the training cascade and distribution of drugs, the program was able to utilize allocated funds within the fiscal year, rather than suffering delays due to bottlenecks.
- Strengthening program coordination, support and partnerships through bringing together governmental, technical and development partners, increasing the multi-sectoral school health committee’s focus on deworming, and facilitating ongoing collaboration from national planning to local implementation.
Featured Video
Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga announcing Kenya’s commitment to a second phase of a national school-based deworming program. The announcement was made at the 2012 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.