Completion of 3rd Round of Treatment in Uganda

Completion of 3rd Round of Treatment in Uganda

The year 2005 in Uganda has seen the third round of mass drug administration take place in the original 18 districts and expansion to an additional 9 districts. Although reporting from the districts is still to be completed, at this stage it is estimated that approximately 3.6 million children and adults have been treated by the Ministry of Health’s Ugandan Bilharzia and Worm Control Programme during the current year. Of those treated around 2.2 million were being treated for the first time with the remainder receiving either their second or third treatment.

In early 2006 a rapid mapping exercise using the Lot Quality Assurance Technique (LQAS) will be carried out in all the 27 districts with known schistosomiasis prevalence by a team from the Vector Control Division of the Ministry of Health. This team will be headed by Dr Narcis Kabatereine who has previously investigated the LQAS technique (Brooker et al., 2005) and it’s applicability as a rapid, valid and cost-effective method of identifying areas which are still at high risk of infection and thus require further rounds of treatment. After the mapping exercise a decision will be taken about the strategy for treatment in 2006.

The second follow-up of data collection has been completed in 2005 and the third follow up data collection has already commenced. Thus far data analysis has indicated that there has been a satisfactory reduction in anaemia in individuals treated by the programme and that the first target of the treatment program, to reduce morbidity, may have been achieved. The percentage of children with moderate and heavy infections has been reduced from 26.1% to 6.5%, which in an area with very heavy transmission is satisfactory. This result does suggest however, that in this area of Uganda, several more annual treatments may be required to bring down prevalence and intensity of infection to levels below which there is no public health problem. Indeed continued regular treatment of school aged children may be a long term necessity to prevent morbidity in later life.

In April 2006, the 7th annual workshop on the National Programme for the Control of Bilharzia and Intestinal Helminths will be convened in Kampala to bring together stakeholders from the district level to present the successes and difficulties encountered whilst implementing the treatment programme. In 2006 many will be asked to provide their experiences of integrating schistosomiasis and STH treatment within the Child Health Days, so that the meeting can determine how this integration can be strengthened during the health day scheduled for May 2006.

Reference:

Brooker S, Kabatereine NB, Myatt M, Stothard JR & Fenwick A. Rapid assessment of Schistosoma mansoni: the validity, applicability and cost-effectiveness of the Lot Quality Assurance Sampling method in Uganda. Tropical Medicine and International Health 2005;10(7):647-658.