Quarterly Dose

Dr. David Addiss, Director of Children Without Worms, introduces the January 2013 issue of The Quarterly Dose. Click the "Read More" link below for the full letter.

In Madagascar, 5.42 million children are at risk of soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH)—nearly the entire school-age population. The Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) is partnering with other government agencies, pharmaceutical donor Johnson & Johnson, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organizations to improve the lives of Madagascan children through deworming. Madagascar’s deworming program is a valuable example of the power of partnerships in strengthening health delivery systems. In this article, Dr. Alain Rahetilahy, Director of the Service for Control of Epidemiological and Neglected Diseases and the Focal Point for Preventive Chemotherapy of the MOPH of Madagascar, shares his experiences from the field. Click the "Read More" link below for the full article. The French version of this article is located here.

Photo caption: Children in Madagascar received Vermox™ to treat STH infection during a deworming campaign in November/December 2012 (Photo credit: A. Rahetilahy)

If you’ve ever searched online for information on school-based deworming and neglected tropical disease (NTD) control, you’ve probably come across www.thiswormyworld.org. The website houses the Global Atlas of Helminth Infections (GAHI) project, which provides the most comprehensive maps for soil-transmitted helminths (STH), schistosomiasis, and lymphatic filariasis currently available. These maps are the product of painstaking data collation and analysis combined with statistical modeling; they illustrate the scope of the problem of these infections at the country level, and provide a valuable source of information for program planning, research, and advocacy. The GAHI project is led by Dr. Simon Brooker, Professor of Epidemiology and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and member of the STH Advisory Committee, and his team of epidemiologists. In this article we present a “Q&A” with Dr. Brooker, who takes readers into the world of disease mapping. Click the "Read More" link below for the full interview.

Image: An example of a predictive risk map for STH in Ethiopia - areas in red have a high probability that prevalence of infection exceeds 20% in the population, yellow areas have medium probability, and blue areas have the lowest probability (Image credit: GAHI, B. Nigut)

This past May, 47 participants, including representatives from six Western Pacific countries, the World Health Organization (WHO), USAID, non-governmental organizations, the STH Advisory Committee and Johnson & Johnson, attended a technical assistance workshop sponsored by Children Without Worms. Read the full article, and learn why Dr. John Ehrenberg, Director of Communicable Diseases for the Western Pacific Regional Office of WHO, described the workshop as a “landmark” meeting.

(Attendees from countries around the Western Pacific region gathered at CWW’s Technical Assistance Workshop to discuss issues related to soil-transmitted helminthiasis control. Photo credit: K. Gallo.)

When Children Without Worms, the International Trachoma Initiative and Emory University’s Center for Global Safe Water jointly engaged Stephanie Ogden as their shared WASH/NTD Coordinator, they took a concrete step toward promoting collaboration between the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and neglected tropical disease (NTD) sectors. In this article, learn more about Stephanie’s role with the three organizations, and some of the ways she intends to further this collaboration.  

(Safe and sustainable water access is critical, not only for drinking, but for hygiene and sanitation purposes.  Above, two children collect water for household use at a pump in southern Ethiopia. Photo credit: S. Ogden.)