CIBITOKE April 16th (ABP) – A provincial social mobilization workshop for the fight against onchocerciasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis was organized on Thursday, April 14, at the headquarters of Cibitoke province by the provincial health office in collaboration with the governor’s office.
This kind of campaign against onchocerciasis organized for the 17th time as part of the fight against neglected tropical diseases will be coupled with deworming and albendazole, for people aged five and over, a check on the site by ABP revealed.
For the chief of staff in the office of the governor of Cibitoke province, Mr. Anicet Saïdi, neglected tropical diseases remain a reality in Cibitoke province, and prevent many affected people from properly tackling development activities. He praised the performance of the health province for the previous years, estimated respectively at the rate above 80% for the treatment against onchocerciasis and at more than 95% for the treatment with albendazole. He thanked and urged various participants to get more involved, although there were also constraints.
The coordinator of the so-called community ivermectin treatment (TIDC) project, Mr. Déogratias Nimpa, onchocerciasis is a public health problem in six provinces out of 18, and can lead to blindness.
The dosage of administration is determined by height and weight, for how many tablets to give.
After taking the mectizan, the same official indicated that it is necessary to await 24 hours to consume alcohol. In that two-week campaign, which will begin on Monday, April 18, the health province of Cibitoke reaches a total of 562,260 people who will take mectizan with 426,945 people who must be dewormed with albendazole, according to the same information source. The people not concerned by the campaign are children under 5 years old, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers not exceeding one week after childbirth.
In the evaluation of treatments from 2005 to 2019, some villages did not reach the 80% target, such as Rugano in Murwi commune; Nyamakarabo and Nyempundu of the Mabayi health district; Buhayira and Buziransazi from Bukinanyana district; as well as Rukana I and II in Rugombo commune.
Strategies have been considered to remedy this, including wide dissemination and reporting of the progress of this campaign, the active involvement of the administration to monitor the distribution of mectizan from door to door, with pressure on the groups of factors that like to boycott such campaigns. It is worthy to note that taking mectizan must be done in front of the community health worker, to prevent possible accidents and not to bias the data.