I’m Timothy Meller, a medical officer in the Department of Medicine, Gombe state specialist hospital and gender based violence/HIV board member.

I started my free de-worming program on 24/03/2018 at Lokulwa, a village under Bambam, Gombe State,which is about 190 km from Gombe town. Although the terrain was terrible, I was able to de-worm 66 children and educate some of the parents. It was an evangelistic outreach but I used the opportunity to flag off my de-worming campaign.

We divided ourselves into 4 groups, each group announced to all households visited of free medical consultation. When they came, I sorted children aged 3 to 10,gave them numbers and each one of them ate the tablet cos it’s sweet. Afterwards, I told the parents the effect of intestinal worms on academic performance and nutritional deficiency.

I equally consulted the adults and attended to other medical conditions as this was part of my church’s mission department plan. However,the de-worming program is my idea and fully funded by me. I hope to de-worm 1000 children by May. The idea came after my post on intestinal worm last year. The poor academic performance in senior secondary school exams and countless cases of malnutrition across the state made me realize I can do something.

The particular drug used, Albendazole, was recommended by my friend, a pharmacist in Jos who equally sells it in his store. I got 1000 tablets for 6500… and it’s said to be effective. It’s manufactured by Netherlands Pharm…

Ideally, I wanted to collect stool samples and isolate the diff pathogens,but I talked with a medical lab scientist and the idea fall out because of time and cost.

WHO recommends de-worming twice a year for both children and adults.

 

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