Regular deworming improves health, prevents malnutrition in children —Experts

PARENTS need to pay more attention to a child’s health in their growing years. Among the health issues that affect children is the presence of worms in the child’s stomach or intestine, mostly due to an unclean environment, which takes a serious toll on health and growth.

The World Health Organisation says that over 600 million school-aged children live in areas where soil-transmitted intestinal worms abound. About 24 percent of the world’s population is infected, with the highest numbers occurring in regions including sub-Saharan Africa.

Soil-transmitted worm infections are among the most common infections in humans, caused by a group of parasites commonly referred to as worms, including roundworms, whipworms, and hookworms.

When children are infected, they may experience symptoms like stomach pain, pallor, weight loss, blood in the stool, diarrhoea, and anaemia, while heavy infections can lead to malnutrition, impaired growth, and physical development. It can even cause blockages in the intestine that may require surgery when not diagnosed and treated successfully with cheap drugs.

When hookworm takes residence in the small intestine, it attaches itself to the intestinal wall and feeds on the host blood, and blood loss at the attachment site results in iron deficiency anaemia and low haemoglobin levels.

Basically, soil-transmitted worms are transmitted by eggs that are passed in the faeces of infected people. Adult worms live in the intestine, where they produce thousands of eggs each day. In areas that lack adequate sanitation, these eggs contaminate the soil.

Dr Johnson Oluyemi Osokor, director of public health services at the Oyo State Primary Health Care Board, stated that regular deworming, a process of using medication to remove an infestation of worms in the intestine, is important because often many children can become malnourished due to a worm infestation.

He declared, “Many schoolchildren are malnourished; nutrition is the essential building block for health. A healthy and well-grown child performs well in school. So, every child needs to be dewormed. Worms live on the body nutrients that children need to grow. A deficiency of micronutrients will affect the development of the brain. So, it is very important for us to remove all those parasites.”

He declared that there are different types of deworming medicines, but generally the one given is that they are able to take care of many types of worms at the same time.

“Basically, different types of worms can be in the body at the same time; for instance, you may have two or more types of worms, including tapeworm, roundworm, pinworm, and hookworm, coexist inside one single body,” he added.

Dr  Osokor, who linked malnutrition in children also to poverty and food insecurity, stated that the diet of children found to be malnourished during hospital visits is usually supplemented with micronutrient food supplements supplied by the government.

Moreover, Dr Monday Famakin, Chief Medical Officer of Health and Director, Primary Health Care, Ibadan North LGA, stated that worm infestation in children can happen due to poor food handling, sanitation, and hand washing, as well as impaired mental and physical development.

“When children come back from play in school or at home, they don’t wash their hands. Meanwhile, they may nimble their nails or hands if they are not properly washed. In the process, they get themselves infected with the eggs of worms. Sometimes, they don’t wash their hands after defecation, and in the process, they also get themselves infected.

“Also, this may be from vegetables and fruits not properly thoroughly washed. Eggs that are attached to vegetables are ingested when the vegetables are not carefully cooked, washed, or peeled.

“In addition, hookworm eggs hatch in the soil, releasing larvae that mature into a form that can actively penetrate the skin. People become infected with hookworm primarily by walking barefoot on the contaminated soil.”

However, aside from worm infestation invariably affecting their IQ, Dr Famakin said children with worms also stand the risk of becoming anaemic and stunted, especially when they are infected with blood-sucking worms like hook worms.

He added, “People with infections of light intensity (a few worms) usually do not suffer from the infection. Heavier infections can result in a range of symptoms, including intestinal manifestations (diarrhoea and abdominal pain), malnutrition, general malaise and weakness, and impaired growth and physical development.

“Fever, abdominal pain, itching at the rectal area, loss of weight and appetite, tiredness, anaemia, along with loose stools, and vomiting are the major signs of a worm infestation. If de-worming is ignored, these worms have the ability to form cysts in the liver and lungs, leading to pneumonia and other neurological conditions. Also, infections of very high intensity can cause intestinal obstruction that would require surgical treatment.”

Dr Famakin suggested that mothers de-worm their children regularly, at least every two years, to eliminate infecting worms, as it can boost the child’s immunity, help control infections, and increase nutritional uptake.

He added that deworming regularly has been observed to help children with other conditions like HIV have a higher quality of life, too.

According to him, worm infestation in children with HIV, for instance, can contribute to exacerbating HIV infection by impairing their immunity, which is necessary for clearing the viral load. Some studies, in fact, show a reduction in viral load after deworming and a delay in disease progression.

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