Photo impressions from the preparation for the last National Deworming Day round in India. Community mobilization and promotion of the Deworming Day is important to increase coverage and get community and political buy-in for the largest, single-day community health program in the world.
Today, Evidence Action welcomes the release of a new study that shows that mass deworming of children has a significant positive effect on child weight and is highly cost effective, with a weight gain per dollar 35 times greater than school feeding programs.
This study strongly refutes findings from a previous critique of mass deworming of children in developing countries with high levels of parasitic worms, a Cochrane meta analysis by Taylor-Robinson et al (2015.) that questioned the long-standing World Health Organization (WHO) policy supporting mass deworming.
The new research, “Does Mass Deworming Affect Child Nutrition?: Meta-analysis, Cost-Effectiveness, and Statistical Power” was authored by Kevin Croke, Joan Hamory Hicks, Eric Hsu, Michael Kremer, and Edward Miguel.