Medicines used in national deworming programme ‘not expired’

Manila: The health department denied reports that it administered expired deworming tablets to public elementary schoolchildren in one of its programmes.

“We have already checked all the sources, the medicines used in the National Deworming Programme are not expired and had just been delivered recently,” Health Secretary Janette Garin said on Thursday.

Earlier, reports emerged that several schoolchildren in the Zamboanga Region in southern Philippines had fallen ill and had to be taken to hospitals after they felt nauseous and began throwing up after being given deworming tablets by health authorities.

Reports reaching Manila said schoolchildren from the cities of Pagadian, Dipolog and Dapitan, as well as the municipalities of Kabasalan, Buug, Alicia and Margosatubig in Zamboanga Sibugay; Diplahan, Dumingag and Dimataling in Zamboanga del Sur, Polanco and Pinas in Zamboanga del Norte, fell sick after being administered with the tablets.

Garin said while it is expected that some of the children would experience nausea and stomachache, this was normal as the medicine delivers its effects of purging the body of parasites.

“These deworming tablets underwent testing by the Food and Drug Administration,” she said while belying circulating text messages that some of those administered with the medicine had died.

“We appeal to the public not to believe and spread text messages that cause panic,” she said.

Garin said that based on information they have, the deworming tablets that the department had distributed have an August 2015 expiration date.

The medicines were given to children free as part of the National School Deworming Day last Wednesday.

Under the initiative, the Department of Health is administering helminthic medicines called Albendazole or Mebendazol to children aged 5 to 12.

Julie Hall, World Health Organisation Representative to the Philippines, said the deworming programme targets 16 million Filipino children for treatment for intestinal worms or soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH).

This will “really be a significant achievement. If we are able to achieve 16 million children, it will be the biggest deworming campaign in the world”, Hall said on Wednesday during a press briefing at the start of the campaign in Mandaluyong City.

According to Garin, STH infections cause poor physical growth and affect intellectual development in children. They can also cause anaemia and malnutrition even among women of childbearing age if left untreated.

Garin said the mass deworming would be carried out twice a year among public and private schoolchildren.