The Challenge

Parasitic worms harm children's health and development and limit their participation in school. 

Over 600 million school-age children are at risk of infection with parasitic worms (soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomes) across the globe. These infections are chronic and widespread, damaging children’s health and development and limiting their participation at school.  Worms can cause anemia, malnourishment, and impairment of mental and physical development, and children, who suffer thehighest intensity of worm infections, experience the greatest morbidity.

Over the near-term, children with worm infections are often too sick or tired to concentrate at school, or to attend school at all. They may also experience impaired cognitive function and short-term memory. Over the long-term, those children persistently infected have been shown to have significantly lower literacy and earnings as adults.

Millions of affected children remain untreated each year. It is estimated that fewer than 15% of at-risk children are receiving treatment, which is far below the 75% target set by the World Health Organization (WHO) to reach by 2010.