Second Mass Treatment in the Niger River Valley

Second Mass Treatment in the Niger River Valley

Following Niger’s first successful mass treatment campaign in the Niger River Valley in December 2004, the ‘Programme National de Lutte contre la Bilharziose et les Géohelminths’ (PNLBG) has again organised a successful treatment campaign. Niger’s second mass schistosomiasis and STH treatment campaign in the region took place between the 28th of November and the 4th of December 2005. The campaign targeted 14 district in Western Niger and a total of 430,213 school children in 3,523 schools and 1,133,066 people in 1,599 highly endemic villages (for a total target population of 1,563,279).

With two mass treatment campaigns behind them (the 2004 Niger River Valley Campaign and the 2005 Tahoua/Maradi Regional Campaign), the national coordinator, Dr. Amadou Garba, and the PNLBG staff were motivated and well prepared for this year’s mass treatment. Information and education campaigns were developed and launched on national, regional and local radio stations and on national television. The media programmes were aired in four languages (French, Hausa, Djerma, and Fulfuldé) and were developed to ensure local populations were well informed about the disease, were knowledgeable of the free treatment campaign, and understood the benefits of the treatment. This year’s media campaigns were more targeted and aired earlier than last year’s, which meant that the demand for treatment was significantly higher.

Several supervision teams (comprised of both health and education representatives) spanned the treatment target regions to ensure all 14 districts had sufficient drugs (both praziquantel and albendazole) during the mass treatment and to answer any questions target populations and/or drug distributors may have had about the campaign. The feedback from both target populations and drug distributors was that the 2005 Niger River Valley treatment campaign was very well received and that the demand for treatment was high in all target populations.

The next treatment campaign in Niger will take place in April 2006 and will target the Easter part of the country, thus covering the entire target population of the country.