Our Fight Against Worms
MORE THAN 835 MILLION CHILDREN ARE AT RISK OF PARASITIC WORM INFECTIONS. WE HAVE HELPED DELIVER OVER 1.3 BILLION TREATMENTS SINCE 2014 FOR LESS THAN US 50 CENTS PER TREATMENT.
A nine-time GiveWell top charity, our Deworm the World Initiative combats worm infections by working with governments to deliver mass school-based deworming programs.
Since 2014, we have supported governments to implement high quality programming, helping treat over 280 million children in 2019. Deworming is proven to improve the nutrition, cognition, school attendance, and long-term economic prospects of children.
“OF THE DEWORMING CHARITIES WE HAVE EVALUATED, [DEWORM THE WORLD] HAS THE STRONGEST TRACK RECORD OF DEMONSTRATING THAT ITS PROGRAMS ARE EFFECTIVE.”
The Solution: A Simple Treatment
Parasitic worm infections, technically known as soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomiasis, spread primarily in areas with inadequate sanitation – affecting poor communities around the world. These infections interfere with children’s nutrient uptake, often leading to anemia, malnourishment, and impaired mental and physical development. As a result, infection means that children are less likely to attend school, adversely affecting educational outcomes. Regular treatment with a simple pill is universally recognized as a safe and effective solution to combat these infections.
Our Deworm the World Initiative helps bring the treatment for free to children at their schools instead of placing the burden on the families to obtain it. We partner with governments to regularly treat all at-risk children in places where at least 20% are infected with worms, as recommended by the World Health Organization. School-based deworming works by freeing children from worm infection, improving their health and enabling them to attend school regularly.
MIT’S ABDUL LATIF JAMEEL POVERTY ACTION LAB (J-PAL) LISTS MASS SCHOOL-BASED DEWORMING AS A “BEST BUY” IN BOTH EDUCATION AND HEALTH.
Impact at Scale
Our program has scaled rapidly: we’ve gone from reaching 35 million children in 2014, to reaching over 280 million in 2019, by supporting governments to conduct school-based deworming. Providing regular treatment has reduced worm infections in these geographies, improving life outcomes for hundreds of millions of children.
The Evidence Base
“A SIGNIFICANT BODY OF EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT DEWORMING WORKS TO IMPROVE CHILDREN’S HEALTH, WELL-BEING, EDUCATION, AND LONG TERM ECONOMIC FUTURE.” — WHO, 2016
Independent rigorous research, including by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer, shows that deworming leads to significant improvements in nutrition, cognition, school participation, and future earnings. Here is a summary of key research findings:
- A meta-analysis found that deworming programs lead to an average weight gain of 0.3kg in children, equivalent to moving a three-year-old from the 25th to the 50th percentile of WHO child growth standards.
- Children who were less than one year old when their siblings received deworming treatment show significant cognitive gains comparable to between 0.5 and 0.8 years of schooling.
- A randomized controlled trial in Western Kenya found that children who received deworming had a 25% reduction in school absenteeism, when compared to those who did not.
- Following those same children in Kenya, researchers found that receiving two to three additional years of deworming increased their income by 13% and consumption by 14% two decades after treatment. More details on this study can be found in this blog.
- A study using historical data from the United States in the 1910s found that parasitic worms could have explained as much as 22% of the early income gap between the North and South.
You can delve deeper into the evidence in this blog that summarizes much of the existing research regarding deworming, and this one that discusses the 20 year deworming impacts study.
How We Support Governments
OUR GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIPS WORK THROUGH A TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE MODEL, WHEREIN WE SUPPORT GOVERNMENTS TO DESIGN AND DELIVER HIGH-QUALITY PROGRAMS.
LEVERAGE
Instead of building a delivery infrastructure from scratch and operating it ourselves—which would be costly and inefficient—we leverage existing government infrastructure, and build support systems to increase the impact.
END-TO-END SUPPORT
We get involved from program inception—advocating with policymakers about the need and importance of school-based deworming—and with their buy-in, collaborate to co-design the program, iterate to improve it, and ensure program goals are met.
SYSTEMS
We create a set of systems to help governments launch, scale, and sustain high-quality deworming programs, and rigorously monitor and assess them to enable regular improvements.
With this model, we have achieved unparalleled impact at a lower cost than virtually any other organization conducting deworming programs.
Our Technical Assistance Model
Click below to learn more about how we partner with governments
