Children Without Worms

Short description: Health campaign

Children Without Worms (CWW) is a program of the Task Force for Global Health aiming for the eradication of worm infections (helminthiases), specifically targeting children.[1][2] CWW works with the World Health Organization, national Ministries of Health, nongovernmental organizations and private-public coalitions such as Uniting to Combat NTDs.[3][4] It acts as an intermediary for the pharmaceutical company Johnson and Johnson in distributing the latter's mebendazole for mass deworming of children to reduce or end soil-transmitted helminthiasis.[5]

Rubina Imtiaz is the Director of CWW.[6][7]

## Contents

* 1 Background
* 2 History
* 3 Objectives
* 4 Works and achievements
* 5 References
* 6 External links

## Background

Main article: Medicine:Soil-transmitted helminthiasis

Soil-transmitted helminthiasis is a neglected tropical disease as a result of infection of intestinal parasites such as roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), whipworm (Trichuris trichiura), hookworms (Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus), and pinworm/threadworm (Strongyloides stercoralis). Most prevalent in the tropical and subtropical regions of Subsaharan Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and China, the disease is an enormous burden on humanity, amounting to 135,000 deaths every year, and persistent infection of more than two billion people.[8][9] The long-term impact is even worse. In these regions, the disease is the single most debilitating cause of intellectual and physical disability. Thus it remains a relentless factor in poor socio-economic growth and human development.[10][11][12]

In 2012, the World Health Organization convened a meeting at London. It was headed by Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, and Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Joined by representatives from the World Bank, major pharmaceutical companies, and governments of US, UK, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Brazil, Mozambique and Tanzania, the meeting approved the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases. The declaration was meant to be a global collaborative disease eradication programme targeting the control and elimination of tropical diseases.[5][13]

## History

Children Without Worms was established in 2005-2006 as a partnership between Johnson & Johnson[14] and the Task Force for Global Health.[15] The involvement of Johnson and Johnson was in large part for the implementation of the London Declaration. As part of the project, Johnson and Johnson was to donate its mebendazole for the treatment of soil-transmitted helminthiasis.[13][5]

Johnson and Johnson committed to free distribution of 200 million doses of mebendazole tablets every year until 2020.[16] Initially called the Mebendazole Donation Initiative, CWW was the first program focused exclusively on reducing the burden of soil-transmitted helminth infections in school-age children in Africa, Asia, and Central America.[15] In 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Johnson and Johnson's Vermox Chewable, a mebendazole tablets suitable for children as young as one year of age, and with it the distribution has been extended to babies.[16][17]

## Objectives

CWW's mission is to enhance the health and development of children by reducing intestinal worm infections.

CWW's work focuses on three pillars:[18]

* Country Engagement: support and build the capacity of national deworming programs to ensure effective and efficient delivery of interventions.
* Partnerships and Advocacy: support effective partnerships with stakeholders to accelerate STH control efforts in endemic countries and disseminate preferred practices in program management, and evaluation.
* Technical Leadership: provide scientific leadership to advocate for evidence-based approaches for the control of intestinal worm infections.

## Works and achievements

From 2006, CWW agreed to manage the deworming medicine donations from Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline for soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH).[19] From 2007 to 201, CWW's strategy focussed on drug donation to country engagement, partnerships and advocacy.[20] In the first mass deworming programme involving CWW, one million Ethiopean children were given mebendazole in 2007, and since 2013 annual mass deworming reached six million.[21] 14 endemic countries were covered during the first phase up to 2012.[22]

Since 2016, CWW has provided technical support to the Ministry of Health in Bangladesh to strengthen their deworming program and continues to engage with countries like Kenya to strengthen their deworming efforts.[23][24]

CWW serves as the secretariat for the Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis Advisory Committee and the STH Coalition.[25] STHAC is group of researchers in tropical medicine and diseases, and is a body that monitors annual activities and achievements in global deworming programmes.[26] It includes scientists experts in Neglected Tropical Diseases, parasitology, epidemiology, child health, and education who convene once a year over two days to provide technical and scientific advice on STH control to national programs, researchers, funders and pharmaceutical donors to improve STH control efforts globally.[27][28]

The STH Coalition was established in 2014 to bring together a cross-sectoral group of partners to accelerate efforts to control STH worldwide. With over 60 members, the STH Coalition members work together on advocacy, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation, policy analysis and research to scale-up deworming efforts in endemic communities around the world.[29][30]

CWW's funding mainly comes from Johnson & Johnson[31] and GlaxoSmithKline.[32] It continued to participate in epidemiological research on helminthiasis and anthelmintic treatment programme.[22][33][24][26]

## References

1. ↑ Nickbarg S (23 November 2011). "Worming Your Way Into Better Health: J&J and Children Without Worms". bclc.uschamber.com. Business Civic Leadership Center, Washington, DC. http://bclc.uschamber.com/blog/2011-11-23/worming-your-way-better-health-jj-and-children-without-worms.
2. ↑ Salaam-Blyther T (2011). Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD): Background, Responses, and Issues for Congress. DIANE Publishing. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-4379-8114-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=0ECHkuUo5zAC.
3. ↑ "Uniting to Combat NTDs" (in en-US). https://unitingtocombatntds.org/.
4. ↑ IFPMA (2012). "Children Without Worms". ifpma.org. http://partnerships.ifpma.org/partnership/children-without-worms.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Private and Public Partners Unite to Combat 10 Neglected Tropical Diseases by 2020". gatesfoundation.org. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 30 January 2012. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/press-releases/2012/01/private-and-public-partners-unite-to-combat-10-neglected-tropical-diseases-by-2020.
6. ↑ "Rubina Imtiaz" (in en). Huffpost. https://www.huffpost.com/author/rubina-imtiaz.
7. ↑ "Rubina Imtiaz" (in en). The Global Schistosomiasis Alliance (GSA). https://www.eliminateschisto.org/working-together/how-we-work-an-alliance-working-together/advisory-board/rubina-imtiaz.
8. ↑ WHO (2012). Eliminating Soil-transmitted Helminthiasis as a Public Health Problem in Children: Progress Report 2001–2010 and Strategic Plan 2011–2020. WHO Press, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. pp. 1–78. ISBN 978-92-4-150312-9. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2012/9789241503129_eng.pdf.
9. ↑ "A research agenda for helminth diseases of humans: the problem of helminthiases". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 6 (4). 2012. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001582. PMID 22545164.
10. ↑ "Soil-transmitted helminth infections: ascariasis, trichuriasis, and hookworm". Lancet 367 (9521): 1521–1532. May 2006. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68653-4. PMID 16679166.
11. ↑ "Determining soil-transmitted helminth infection status and physical fitness of school-aged children". Journal of Visualized Experiments 66 (66). August 2012. doi:10.3791/3966. PMID 22951972.
12. ↑ "A research agenda for helminth diseases of humans: towards control and elimination". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 6 (4). 2012. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001547. PMID 22545161.
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 WHO (3 February 2012). "WHO roadmap inspires unprecedented support to defeat neglected tropical diseases". who.int. World Health Organization, Geneva. https://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/London_meeting_follow_up/en/.
14. ↑ "Keeping Children Free of Infection" (in en). 2017-01-31. https://www.jnj.com/caring/patient-stories/keeping-children-free-of-infection.
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Collaboration has been the hallmark of our work for more than three decades." (in en-US). https://www.taskforce.org/about-us/history.
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "How Johnson & Johnson Is Helping Save Children Around the World from Intestinal Worm Infections" (in en). 2017-04-21. https://www.jnj.com/caring-and-giving/how-johnson-johnson-is-helping-save-children-around-the-world-from-intestinal-worm-infections-mebendazole-treatment.
17. ↑ "U.S. FDA Approves Vermox™ Chewable (Mebendazole) For Treatment of Children and Adults With Roundworm and Whipworm Infections | Johnson & Johnson" (in en). 19 October 2016. https://www.jnj.com/media-center/press-releases/us-fda-approves-vermoxtm-chewable-mebendazole-for-treatment-of-children-and-adults-with-roundworm-and-whipworm-infections.
18. ↑ "What We Do | Children Without Worms". http://childrenwithoutworms.org/about-us/what-we-do.
19. ↑ "CWW - Childeren Without Worms: Partnership for Treating and Preventing Intestinal Worms. | InfoNTD" (in en). https://www.infontd.org/organization/cww-childeren-without-worms-partnership-treating-and-preventing-intestinal-worms.
20. ↑ "Safety of a New Chewable Formulation of Mebendazole for Preventive Chemotherapy Interventions to Treat Young Children in Countries with Moderate-to-High Prevalence of Soil Transmitted Helminth Infections". Journal of Tropical Medicine 2012. 2012. doi:10.1155/2012/590463. PMID 23319961.
21. ↑ "Mass Drug Administration to Deworm 17 Million Children Underway in Ethiopia" (in en). https://www.afro.who.int/news/mass-drug-administration-deworm-17-million-children-underway-ethiopia.
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Assessing "First Mile" Supply Chain Factors Affecting Timeliness of School-Based Deworming Interventions: Supply and Logistics Performance Indicators". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 9 (12). December 2015. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0004115. PMID 26657842.
23. ↑ "Country Support | Children Without Worms". http://www.childrenwithoutworms.org/our-work/country-support.
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Post-intervention epidemiology of STH in Bangladesh: Data to sustain the gains". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 14 (12). December 2020. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0008597. PMID 33284834.
25. ↑ tfgh (2019-05-30). "Better Data and Drug Quality Drives Children Without Worms' Efforts to Help Eliminate Intestinal Worm Infections" (in en-US). https://www.taskforce.org/better-data-and-drug-quality-drives-children-without-worms-efforts-to-help-eliminate-intestinal-worm-infections/.
26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Webster, Joanne P., ed (April 2019). "Challenges and opportunities for control and elimination of soil-transmitted helminth infection beyond 2020". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 13 (4). doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007201. PMID 30973872.
27. ↑ "Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis Advisory Committee Convenes at Swiss TPH" (in en). 18 October 2016. https://www.myscience.ch/news/wire/soil_transmitted_helminthiasis_advisory_committee_convenes_at_swiss_tph-2016-swisstph.
28. ↑ "Technical Leadership | Children Without Worms". http://www.childrenwithoutworms.org/our-work/technical-leadership.
29. ↑ "New Methods for Assessing Impact in deworming". 2017-04-03. https://www.taskforce.org/newsroom/global-effort-eliminate-intestinal-worms-emphasizes-new-methods-assessing-program-success.
30. ↑ "Uniting to Stop the Worms Infographic". www.childrenwithoutworms.org. 13 December 2018. https://childrenwithoutworms.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2018_Uniting-to-Stop-the-Worms-Infographic_Updated_13Dec2018.pdf.
31. ↑ "How Johnson & Johnson Is Helping Save Children Around the World from Intestinal Worm Infections" (in en). 2017-04-21. https://www.jnj.com/caring-and-giving/how-johnson-johnson-is-helping-save-children-around-the-world-from-intestinal-worm-infections-mebendazole-treatment.
32. ↑ "One medicine fighting two neglected tropical diseases". https://www.gsk.com/media/4903/3562_gsk_ntd-infographic_p11_horiz_final_130618.pdf.
33. ↑ Bentwich, Zvi, ed (March 2015). "Unprogrammed deworming in the Kibera slum, Nairobi: implications for control of soil-transmitted helminthiases". PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 9 (3). doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0003590. PMID 25763577.

## External links

* Home page
* The Task Force for Global Health
* Johnson & Johnson
* NTDs at Helen Keller International
* Developing World Health Partnerships Directory
* Janssen: Children Without Worms In Cambodia
* SourceWatch
* GOODGATE
* Global Health Progress
* NTD Envision

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