Bogotá, July 14, 2022. The Ministry of Health and Social Protection is progressing in massive deworming campaigns throughout the country for children and adolescents aged 1 to 14 years. This is an activity that has been performed globally for years and is safe. In the country, it is done with albendazole and mebendazole, which are reliable, effective, free, and easy-to-administer medications.
"From 2014 to 2021, 8,098,620 doses of antiparasitic drugs were administered in Colombia and no serious adverse effect has been reported to date; severe reactions are extremely rare," said Iván Cárdenas, deputy director of communicable diseases of the Office of Promotion and Prevention.
"The side effects of the administration of antiparasitic drugs are minimal and transient; the most common are gastrointestinal bothers such as abdominal pain and/or nausea and they occur more frequently in infected patients, that is, they are side effects as a body's response to the death of the parasites after consuming the antiparasitics," added Cárdenas.
In a study conducted with the support of the World Health Organization, it was reported that the total number of deworming treatments administered between 2010 and 2014 was approximately 4 billion tablets. It was concluded that a presumed adverse event may occur for every 10 million tablets administered, which is equivalent to 0.00001%.
The World Health Organization recommends mass deworming of the population at risk (between 1 and 14 years) in endemic areas, promoting proper hygiene habits and the use of footwear. It is also important to guarantee access to basic services such as drinking water and sewerage, as well as an adequate disposal of excreta and garbage.
Let us remember that this type of infection is caused by the ingestion of food or drinks contaminated with worm eggs from the soil and by the penetration of larvae or worms of these parasites through the skin when the soil is contaminated with fecal matter.
In Colombia, geohelminthiasis is a public health problem that occurs mainly in the Amazon, Pacific and Atlantic regions, where there is a high risk of infection. In other areas such as Orinoquía and North Andean, there are population groups at moderate and low risk. The massive anthelmintic deworming strategies must be intensified in all of these.
Since 2014, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection has accessed the albendazole donation program through the Pan American Health Organization, and starting in 2019, the mebendazole donation program.
The antiparasitic medication used in anthelmintic deworming for preschool and school-age children are drugs that can be used both in individual treatments and treatments for specific groups. The dose used in targeted treatments is one tablet per round. Both are chewable medications which facilitates administration.
The Ministry of Health calls on the support teams of the country's health offices so that, with training, they explain to minors, families, caregivers and the community in general about the importance of deworming, the benefits to the physical and cognitive health of infants, but also to report on the possible occurrence of adverse events, the indications for their management and the importance of reporting cases that must also be treated in a health institution.
In an institution, the case must be handled by a doctor, who will assess severity and must notify the pharmacovigilance program of the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (Invima) in the standardized format of that institution for that purpose.
The minimum municipal goal is the deworming of 75% of this target population, so the Ministry of Health urges the territorial entities to guarantee access to deworming through health events organized in the municipalities with moderate and high risk of infection. Likewise, parents and caregivers must facilitate access to this activity and therefore, together, reduce the risk of anemia, prevent growth retardation, and contribute to the cognitive, motor and language development of this population.
