USAID Supports Vietnam’s Campaign to Fight Intestinal Worms

Vietnam’s Ministries of Health and Education and Training launched a large-scale, U.S.-supported distribution of medicine to combat the problem of intestinal worms amongst children and women of reproductive age in disadvantaged areas of Vietnam.

 

To kick-start this year’s mass campaign, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is joining Vietnam’s National Institute of Malariology, Parasitology and Entomology (NIMPE) of the Ministry of Health in Dien Bien Province, to distribute medicine to 63,000 school-aged children living in the province.

 

During the period from November 2011 to September 2013, USAID is helping with the funding of mass drug administration campaigns for women and children, in 17 targeted provinces where the Ministry of Health has identified gaps in deworming drug coverage. 

 

In total during 2012, drug administration will reach 1.5 million children aged two to five years in 22 provinces; 5.1 million school aged children in 38 provinces, and 3.5 million women in 15 provinces.  In 2011, USAID supported drug administration campaigns in 10 provinces where 686,916 school aged children and over 1.2 million women of childbearing age required a deworming drug.