School-based Deworming

A population-level practice in which all at-risk people in areas endemic for soil-transmitted helminths, with school-age children a key target group, receive periodic anthelminthic medicines without previous individual diagnosis. The WHO recommended medicines, albendazole and mebendazole, are effective, inexpensive and easy enough to administer that non-medical personnel such as teachers can deliver them, which is what makes schools an efficient delivery platform. The strategy's global mandate dates to 2001, when the World Health Assembly unanimously endorsed resolution WHA54.19 urging endemic countries to tackle schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths. WHO reports that between 2010 and 2019 the disability-adjusted life years lost each year to soil-transmitted helminths fell by more than half. Debate exists in the wider literature about the size of deworming's non-health benefits.