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CSU 22/2008: DEWORMING IN PRESCHOOLERS
CSU 22/2008: Controlling Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis in Pre-School-Age Children through Preventive Chemotherapy
Deworming is one high impact intervention which has taken off quickly in the last decade, before some essential research questions were answered. In this review article, also available at
http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000126
Albonico and colleagues review the published and unpublished literature on
the subject, especially such imperfectly understood questions as the impact of deworming on cognitive abilities and the risks of mass drug administration in very young subjects. From the abstract:
' The first section describes the burden of STH disease in this age group,
followed by a summary of how infection impacts iron status, growth, vitamin A status, and cognitive
development and how STHs may exacerbate other high mortality infections. The second section explores the safety of the drugs themselves, given alone or co-administered, drug efficacy, and the importance of safe administration. The third section provides country-based evidence to demonstrate improved health outcomes after STH treatment. The final section provides country experiences in scaling up coverage of pre-school children by using other large scale public health interventions, including vitamin A programmes, immunization campaigns, and Child Health days. The paper concludes with a number of open research questions and a summary of some of the operational challenges that still need to be addressed.'
Good reading.
BD