Background:
De-worming Tigray State - by NALA Foundation and its partners in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has a high prevalence of all NTDs across the country which therefore makes eradication of these NTDs most likely to have a major impact on health and on the dissemination of other epidemics such as AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. More recently, the Ethiopian government, as well as several other African countries, has officially put the fight against NTDs high on their priority in their health agenda.
Recently there has been a "dramatic" development on behalf of the Ethiopian government, which has officially announced the launching of the "Five-year National Plan to Eradicate Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)" and placed this plan as a national priority program!
The "gospel" was carried out by Ethiopia's Health Minister - Dr. Kesseteberhan, at the NTDs National Symposium on June 12-14 in Addis Ababa. Professor Bentwich was invited to the Symposium as a honored lecturer, a partner and also as an active consultant to the Steering Committee of the Ministry of Health helping to formulate this five-year government program.
(We invite you to read the contents of the links below summarizing the NTDs NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM Held in June in Addis Ababa:
In this context, we are proud to report that NALA Foundation is leading these days the most significant and comprehensive De-Worming program in Ethiopia. These actions have paved the way for close cooperation with both the Federal Ministry of Health and the international parties supporting the Ministry of Health's NTDs eradication Program. Today we are leading two major projects in this field in Ethiopia:
1. De-worming people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIVA) - Project funded by WFP, aimed at Eradication of NTDs in people living with HIV and AIDS that are taking part in a special nutrition supplement program of the WFP.
2. De-worming Tigray State - Project funded by SCI-UK of the Imperial College in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of TIGRAY state. After we have covered the entire population of school children in the city of Mek'elle, the program now focus on 3 additional cities in Tigray state and should reach a population of about 600 thousand people!! This project is to be carried out in several phases during the next five years, with the ultimate goal of covering the whole population of Tigray State (a total population of 4-5 million people).
NALA Foundation - the Executive arm of CEMTA (the Center for Emerging Tropical Diseases and AIDS at Ben Gurion University of Israel) has initiated a comprehensive program for eradication of what are called Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) from Ethiopia. This program was launched four years ago and has been very successful as determined by repeated surveys in the treated population before and after intervention.
The program in Mekelle city of Tigray State has succeeded in decreasing a very high prevalence of Bilharzias (Schistosomiasis) and Soil Transmitted Helminthes (STH) among school children, which previously showed prevalence up to a 100 percent, to less than 20 percent in just a year and has been shown to be sustained by the combination of mass drug administration, health education, and water sanitation. After NALA Foundation has de-wormed the entire population of school children in the city of Mekelle, the program this year focuses on 3 additional cities in Tigray State and aims to reach a population of about 600 thousand people!
NALA foundation started on September 29, 2013 an operation for Mass Drug Administration (MDA) in order to eliminate Schistosomiasis and intestinal parasites in the most infected areas in Tigray region. The operation of NALA Foundation will be performed in cooperation with TRHB (Tigray Regional Health Bureau), OSSA-Tigray and SCI of the imperial College-UK. During the operation more than 2 million pills against parasites will be sent to schools and community centers in 6 Weredas in Tigray (Madabay-Zana, Alamata Rural, Alamata Urban, Adwa Rural, Adwa Urban and Mekelle) and will be given to the target population of 600,000 people by local health extension workers and school teachers.
This MDA operation follows a preparatory period of several months in which De-worming TOT (training of trainers) workshops were carried out by NALA staff in several locations in Tigray State. In addition an extended survey that was performed on May 2013, in collaboration with the Parazitology Department of Mekelle University, found that the areas where the operation will take place are among the most infected areas in Tigray, and therefore NALA Foundation found this operation justified and important.
On September 29th, September 30th, and October 1st, Prof. Bentiwch (President and Founder of NALA Foundation) is visiting, together with NALA's local partners, different locations in Tigray State and officially launch the Mass Drug Administration Campaign for Tigray State.
This operation is to be carried out in several phases during the next five years, with the ultimate goal of covering the whole population of Tigray State (a total population of 4-5 million people).
The project got another important justification by the Addis Ababa declaration held in June 2013. The members of the national NTD symposium, in which Prof. Bentwich was one of the speakers, committed to fight and eradicate NTDs by all possible means.
NALA Foundation has significantly eradicated Schistosomiasis and Soil Transmitted Helminthes (STH) in close to 300,000 people. This success has been the result of combining mass drug administration, health education, water sanitation, and active participation of community and local government. Based on these achievements, NALA has been named an official partner to the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health and WHO in planning and implementing a national NTD eradication program for the next five years 2011-2015.
Moreover, a new volunteer delegation, composed of 6 students, will be heading to Ethiopia for a period of three months. This delegation will continue our "health education and hygiene" campaign in Mekelle City's community and schools, which was successfully established last year by the first student delegation. In addition, this new delegation will be involved in the extensive operation of drug distribution in Tigray state, as part of the NTDs Eradication project, supported by the Imperial College - UK.
Subsequently, we have recently launched a new volunteer project in Gondar – Ethiopia. For this purpose NALA Foundation has joined forces with TEN program of the Jewish Agency .Together with "TEN" volunteer we have started a new de-worming project (at this stage on a small scale) in this region of Ethiopia.
"TEN" volunteers will be responsible for the educational activities of the project, and like their counterparts in Mekelle, will lead the activities of "health education and hygiene" in the schools and the community. On this occasion we would like to thank Nir, Yarden and Nezanet from "TEN program" for their fruitful cooperation.