DAGUPAN CITY – The one-day simultaneous nationwide National School Deworming Day in the region kicked-off here on July 29 in a program held at the West Central Elementary School covered court.
The program was led by Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Janette Loreto-Garin, who was represented by Dr. Valeriano V. Timbang Jr.; DOH Region I Director Dr. Myrna C. Cabotaje and Mayor Belen T. Fernandez along with Schools Division Superintendent Froserfina J. Bravo.
Cabotaje said deworming has been going on in the public schools even before but this was the first time that the program was implemented simultaneously in just one day during the term of Secretary Garin..
The objective of the nationwide campaign was to deworm approximately 16 million school aged children enrolled in 38,659 public elementary schools in one day specifically to increase and scale-up the mass drug administration coverage for school-aged children (5-12 years old or kindergarten to Grade VI), to facilitate and ensure timely reporting of deworming intervention and to promote partnership in all levels in the implementation of deworming for school-aged children enrolled in public elementary schools.
Region 1 alone has around 626,436 school-aged children in 2,395 public schools.
“This is to create an impact so that we could encourage more parents and children to be part of the program unlike before na inaabot tayo ng isang buwan or more bago natin matapos ang pagpupurga sa mga bata,” said Cabotaje.
Cabotaje added that for the program to succeed parents and children need to observe two things: medication and proper hygiene.
Fernandez, on the other hand, considers the program seeks to encourage every Dagupeño to give this public health issue the attention it rightfully deserves.
“Dagupan is probably one of the cities with the highest density of children served in terms of our supplementary feeding programs, in fact we posted an impressive increase of 45 percent, from 1,995 to 2,892 children in 2014,” said Fernandez.
She added that by the next Children’s Congress, the children will be oriented on how to protect their body parts to remain healthy
On the National Deworming Day the children were made to perform several activities like hand washing and tooth brushing after the feeding before the mass deworming. (Joseph C. Bacani/CIO)
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