Millions of children to benefit from Dubai Cares-backed deworming programme

The philanthropic organisation, which is part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, has joined a consortium of partners in the near Dh5 million programme.

Almost 16 million children are to benefit from the Dubai Cares school deworming programme in Ethiopia. Courtesy Memac Ogilvy

DUBAI // Almost 16 million children are to benefit from a near Dh5 million Dubai Cares school deworming programme in Ethiopia.

The philanthropic organisation, which is part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, has joined a consortium of partners in the Dh4,828,770 programme.

Along with international partners including the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the UK’s Department for International Development, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Evidence Action and The END Fund, the project will see 15.6 million children of school age given treatment to eradicate intestinal worms and diseases such as snail fever, soil-transmitted helminths (STH), river blindness, lymphatic filariasis and trachoma. The targeted conditions account for 90 per cent of the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) burden in sub-Saharan Africa.

The deworming programme is being implemented in conjunction with the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health and is part of a larger, five-year masterplan to treat more than 75 per cent of at-risk school-age children in all nine regions in Ethiopia by 2020. During the five years, more than 100 million treatments will be administered.

“The government of Ethiopia, as evident by the efforts of Ethiopia’s minister of health, has made the control of NTDs a national priority,” said Dubai Cares chief executive Tariq Al Gurg.

“This represents a level of commitment rarely seen from governments and is to be applauded. Parasitic intestinal worms contribute to poor health, poor nutritional outcomes and threaten children’s livelihoods. No community should suffer the consequences of preventable tropical diseases and we are extremely pleased to be able to contribute to their treatment.”

The World Health Organisation estimates that 200,000 people die annually as a result of contracting snail fever, with a further 200 million suffering serious health consequences.