Bibliographic Info
Recommendation
Recommended in favor
Strong
Certainty of evidence
Moderate
Preventive chemotherapy (deworming), using annual or biannual single-dose albendazole (400 mg) or mebendazole (500 mg), is recommended as a public health intervention for all non-pregnant adolescent girls (10–19 years of age) and non-pregnant women of reproductive age (15–49 years of age) living in areas where the baseline prevalence of any soil-transmitted helminth infection is 20% or higher among non-pregnant adolescent girls and non-pregnant women of reproductive age, in order to reduce the worm burden of soil-transmitted helminth infection
Notes and Remarks
- 1.Biannual administration is recommended where the baseline prevalence exceeds 50%
- 2.As the prevalence and intensity of soil-transmitted helminth infections are related, only lightintensity infection and low morbidity are expected where the prevalence of any soil-transmitted helminth infection is lower than 20%. Large-scale preventive chemotherapy programmes are not recommended in these situations.
- 3.Delivering preventive chemotherapy to adolescent girls and women of reproductive age entails extra care and precaution in ensuring that women and girls receiving anthelminthic medicines are not pregnant. Policy-makers may decide to withhold preventive chemotherapy among adolescent girls and women of reproductive age if the pregnancy status or gestational age of women and girls is uncertain, or in areas where rates of unplanned pregnancies are high and coverage of antenatal care is low.
- 4.As the cost of preventive chemotherapy is largely determined by operational challenges, settings that do not have health services offering preventive health care to non-pregnant adult women and adolescent girls may find this intervention more resource intensive. Therefore, extra resources may be required for delivery of preventive chemotherapy to adolescent girls, who may not be easily reached within existing infrastructures.
- 5.Provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene services is fundamental, to break the cycle of infection and reinfection and sustainably control soil-transmitted helminth infections. Collaboration between programmes for control of soil-transmitted helminth infection and water, sanitation and hygiene programmes is essential to ensure prioritization of water and sanitation services to areas that are endemic for soil-transmitted helminths and will further minimize costs and sustain the benefits of reducing soil-transmitted helminth infections.
- 6.Deworming should be delivered together with promotion of health and hygiene, to reduce transmission by encouraging healthy behaviours, such as hand washing, use of footwear and proper disposal of faeces.
- 7.Routine monitoring for effective coverage and evaluation of the impact of the intervention should be an integral part of preventive chemotherapy programmes to help inform the decision on continuation or cessation of the programme
Also Featured In
This recommendation also appears in the following guidelines:
WHO recommendations on maternal and newborn care for a positive postnatal experience.