NAN-HG-7
De-worming
By Donald Ugwu
Abuja, Nov. 20, 2017(NAN) The National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) is collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Health to deliver an integrated de-worming programme for pupils in public primary schools, a statement has said.
Mr Laolu Akande, the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, said in the statement on Monday that pupils in 17 states currently under the NHGSFP would benefit.
He said the exercise was targeted pupils in classes 1 to 6, while no fewer than 243 local government areas would benefit in the 17 states.
The states include Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Niger, Osun, Bauchi, Jigawa, Katsina, Zamfara, Anambra, Benue, Imo, Kano, Kaduna, Ebonyi, Delta and Plateau.
According to Akande, the deworming is scheduled for the first and second weeks of December in the states.
He said that three different drugs would be delivered for the treatment of diseases endemic to specific states, particularly schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminths and river blindness/onchocerciasis.
The drugs to be distributed are Albendazole, Ivermectin and Parazaquintel, adding that three facilitators, supported by the Federal Government, would work in the states for the period to achieve the objectives of the exercise.
Furthermore, Akande said that in furtherance of its goal to tackle poverty and hunger, and to create jobs for Nigerians in line with its inclusive growth plan, the NHGSF Programme was now operational in 19 states across the federation.
They include Anambra, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Delta, Abia, Benue, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba, Kaduna, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Imo, Jigawa and Niger states.
He said that so far, no fewer than five million pupils in 28,249 schools in the affected states were being fed under the programme.
He stated that Kano and Katsina states would be added to the beneficiary states in the coming weeks while over 50,000 cooks were currently engaged under the programme.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the school feeding programme, which is part of President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s N500 billion National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP), is targeted to feed 5.5 million school children by the end of 2017.(NAN)
DCU/NKO/NKO
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Edited by Nkechi Okoronkwo