PESHAWAR: Stomach worms are increasing day by day among people in Pakistan, due to which they can suffer from many diseases, the most common of which are anaemia and iron deficiency.
This was stated by renowned health practitioner Dr Abdullah Shah Baghdadi while talking to reporter here Sunday. He said stomach worms are a common disease that often occurs in children. Pakistan’s weather provides a favorable environment for these worms in the stomach for example, eating raw cooked things, not washing vegetables and fruits well, contaminated water, substandard food and drinks.
He said that the common cause is lack of hygiene, if a child has worms in their stomach, they have iron deficiency anemia. In addition, he said, they may suffer from intestinal obstruction, inflammation of the gallbladder and especially in women, stone disease.
Apart from chronic diarrhea due to stomach worms, there are many other diseases that should be avoided every six months, he added. Stomach deworming medicine should be taken. In order to eradicate stomach worms in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Education and Health Departments are jointly conducting a campaign to eliminate stomach worms in 22 districts of the province.
This insecticide is approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, he informed. In this campaign, children between 5 to 14 years of age will be given deworming medicine. To be started on school basis, children will be fed deworming medicine to prevent them from diseases, he said.
He said, last year 2021 in Mardan district, about 2,140 public and private school children as well as 352,848 madrasas students were given medicines. He said the annual large-scale deworming campaign of children is important for the physical and cognitive development of children.
It will make the children’s body resistant to infection, improve the school performance of the children, the top health priorities of the government of Pakistan include elimination of malnutrition and anaemia, for which deworming is fast, easy and the safest method is treatment.
Abdullah Shah Baghdadi said some children develop a habit of eating thread, cloth or any irregular object. Although there may be many other reasons, saliva flows from the mouth or teeth grind at night. Children often cry at night, there is itching at the stool or they become obsessed with eating sweets or lack of appetite and slowness is also a symptom.
He said stomach worms are a common disease that not only affects children but also causes constant suffering for adults. He also advised the parents to take care of their children so that they don’t eat things that cause pain to them. People are requested to make their children a part of this campaign to get rid of stomach worms through free and safe medicine so that their future is bright and safe, he advised.