Numbers show coverage of school-aged children is slowly increasing whilst a decline in coverage continues for preschool-aged children.
A March edition of WHO's Weekly Epidemiological Record focused on the number of children treated in 2013 for soil-transmitted helminthiases (STH). The WHO's STH treatment strategy is preventive chemotherapy (PC) with albendazole or mebendazole to reduce transmission and morbidity where STH prevalence is over 20%.
The preventive chemotherapy and transmission control database was established in 2009 to collect data on the number of children receiving PC. The database is available online and contains STH information by year and by country, including numbers of pre-school and school-aged children requiring PC, numbers of children treated, and national coverage of PC.
For 2013, data analyses reveal new figures for numbers of children requiring and treated for STH.
Preschool-aged children
- Globally, over 266 million children required treatment in 106 countries.
- Of these, 64 million were treated according to the 43 countries that reported data.
- This means a global coverage of 24% for preschool-aged children treated for STH using PC.
- This represents a decrease from 2012 treatment, where global coverage for this age group was 27.7%.
School-aged children
- Globally, over 609 million children required treatment in 106 countries.
- Of these, 237 million were treated according to the 61 countries that reported data.
- This means a global coverage of 38.9% for school-aged children treated for STH using PC.
- This represents an increase from 2012 treatment, where global coverage for this age group was 37.5%.
For the full report, including regional figures, download the WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record, vol. 90, 10, pp. 89-96.