The Health and Education ministries are targeting to de-worm at least 300, 000 children in Kisii County by end of March this year.
The Kisii Public Health Officer (PHO), Melitus Kabar said that exercise, which is in its 6th year since initiation, would see children aged between 2 to 14 years get de-wormed.
The exercise is funded by Evidence Action a national NGO in conjunction with the County and National government of Kenya.
According to Kabar at least 16.5million people in Kenya were known to be having worms which he said was a risk to their health, adding that 7 million children are at risk of contracting worms.
Kabar said that the programme, which started 5 years ago in 27 counties, has seen at least 5.3million children de-wormed with at least 164 sub counties in the 27 have benefitted from the programme.
He also added that the target is ensuring that all children in early childhood schools to standard 8 pupils in both public and private schools.
In the programme, the Ministry of Education which has the children and infrastructure, will avail children while their health counterparts will procure the drugs and also train teachers on how to carry out the exercise.
“Currently, we are training the teachers in the four sub counties on how to administer the drug. We started with the national training where all personnel from counties were engaged. We then trained at County level and we are now at Sub Counties,” he said.
According to the PHO, Kisii County is fighting the common worms like tapeworms and roundworms while areas in Nyanza were fighting the same plus bilharzia which is common in this region.
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