From Musa Muhammad Kutama, Calabar
The Cross River State Government has said thousands of schoolchildren will benefit from a statewide deworming campaign aimed at combating intestinal worm infections among pupils.
Stakeholders in the health and education sectors disclosed this during a one-day media engagement workshop organised ahead of the 2026 School-Based Deworming Programme in the state.
The workshop, organised by Evidence Action at the Nigeria Union of Journalists Press Centre in Calabar, brought together journalists, health experts and development partners to strengthen advocacy and improve public awareness on Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Evidence Action, a global non-profit organisation registered in Nigeria since 2016, provides technical support to federal and state governments to implement large-scale deworming programmes targeted at reducing intestinal worm infections among school-age children.
The organisation works in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and the State Universal Basic Education Board to deliver treatment across schools and communities.
Health experts say intestinal worm infections remain a major public health challenge globally, with more than 1.5 billion people infected with soil-transmitted helminths, representing about 24 per cent of the world’s population.
More than one billion children require treatment for these infections, while over 128 million children need treatment for schistosomiasis.
Medical experts noted that the diseases thrive in areas with poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, particularly where access to clean water and proper waste disposal is limited. Children between the ages of five and fourteen are considered the most vulnerable due to their frequent exposure to contaminated soil and water.
Speaking during the workshop, the Cross River State Programme Officer for Neglected Tropical Diseases, Veronica Mark, said the deworming campaign was designed to improve the health and academic performance of children by eliminating worm infections that affect their growth and concentration in school.
“This activity is mainly for children from the ages of five to fourteen years. We want them to take this medicine so they can be free from worm infections and perform effectively in their various schools,” she said.
“A child that is heavily infested with worms will not do well in class and sometimes may even stay away from school.”
Mark emphasised that the medicines to be administered during the exercise are safe and completely free, urging parents, school authorities and communities to cooperate with health workers and teachers who will administer the treatment.
“We want everybody to know that this medicine is not harmful and nobody is expected to pay for it. The medicines are free and will be administered by trained health workers and teachers,” she added.
She disclosed that the intervention would cover several local government areas in the state where the diseases are prevalent and assured that the government had made arrangements to reach even remote communities.
“Cross River has many hard-to-reach areas but government has made arrangements to ensure that every community that is supposed to receive treatment will be reached,” she said.
Also speaking during the workshop, the Senior Manager of Evidence Action Nigeria and South-South Programme Lead, Ambassador Eustace Toochi Ohaji, said the deworming intervention forms part of a broader effort to eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases by 2030 in line with global health targets set by the World Health Organisation.
He said the programme had already recorded significant progress in Cross River State since it began operations in 2016.
According to him, an impact assessment conducted in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health revealed that the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth infections in the state had reduced by 48.5 per cent, while cases of schistosomiasis had declined by 76 per cent.
“This is a very laudable achievement for Cross River State and it shows that the efforts of the government and partners are producing results,” he said.
“We are committed to strengthening our partnership with the state so that the gains recorded so far will continue and we can move closer to eliminating these diseases by 2030.”
Ohaji explained that the current phase of the programme would focus mainly on soil-transmitted helminth infections and would run for five days across selected local government areas.
He added that trained health workers and teachers would administer the medicines to eligible children in schools and communities, noting that schools had been linked to nearby health facilities to manage any mild side effects.
“There is a clear difference between adverse events and side effects. Adverse events are life-threatening conditions while side effects are expected reactions that are usually mild,” he said.
“For the deworming medicines we administer, there are no known adverse events.”
The Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Cross River State, Archibong Bassey, commended Evidence Action and its partners for improving child health through the programme.
“This programme is very commendable because sometimes parents forget to deworm their children regularly and that can affect their health and education,” he said.
Evidence Action currently supports deworming programmes that target more than six million school-age children annually across Nigeria and collaborates with government agencies to train thousands of teachers, community distributors and health workers each year to administer treatment in schools and communities.
Stakeholders at the workshop emphasised that sustained collaboration between government agencies, development partners and the media would be essential in ensuring that every eligible child receives treatment as efforts continue to eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases in Cross River State and across Nigeria.
