January 28, 2012
A press conference was held last Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to highlight recent achievements by Deworm the World (DtW) and to announce increased support by governments and donors to improve the lives of the more than 400 million school-aged children suffering from intestinal worms.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga also took the opportunity to announce the second phase of Kenya’s national school-based deworming program, to be supported by technical assistance from DtW and financed by The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). This program aims to treat 5 million children annually for the next five years.
Sriram Raghavan, a board member of DtW, highlighted the important short-run and long-term education, health, and income benefits of school-based deworming programs, demonstrated by J-PAL affiliates Michael Kremer and Edward Miguel, among others.
USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah noted that “the data on [school-based deworming] is airtight and [USAID] is proud to be supporting something that has been demonstrated to be among the most cost-effective ways to use scarce taxpayer resources.”
Since 2009, DtW has facilitated school-based deworming in 27 countries with over 37 million children dewormed, including 3.65 million in Kenya and 17 million in Bihar, India.
See the full press release and video of the press conference.
For more information on Deworm the World (DtW), click here.
