The Government of Pakistan has initiated the “Deworm Islamabad Initiative,” targeting 570,000 children aged 5-15 in Islamabad who are at risk of infection with intestinal worms. Trained school teachers administered free-of-cost deworming medicine (mebendazole), which is universally recognized as a safe and cost-effective treatment.
There is a difference between a low-cost program and a cost-effective program. Implementing a low-cost program is not sufficient - we want to ensure that the impacts of the program are measurable and that the benefits outweigh the costs - this is what makes a program truly cost-effective. Putting these two parts of the equation - costs and benefits - together, we can estimate the value for money of our program.
India’s National Deworming Day (NDD), initiated in 2015, is the world’s largest single-day public health intervention, providing children between the ages of 1-19 with free deworming tablets. As part of Evidence Action’s technical assistance to the Government of India and select state governments for the August NDD treatment round, we are collaborating on several tailored strategies to target hard-to-reach children, including migrant workers in the north-eastern state of Tripura.