Parents wary of deworming

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Many parents here and in other Mindanao areas have kept their children away from Wednesday’s deworming activity in public schools, which was led by the Department of Health (DOH).

The obvious reason, some parents here said, was last year’s experience when more than 6,000 children were rushed to hospitals in the Zamboanga peninsula after taking the free anthelmintic pills given them.

Dr. Maria Agnes Mabolo, DOH division chief in Western Mindanao, said health officials hoped to achieve a minimum of 85-percent coverage in the region.

But at the Tetuan Elementary School here, for example, which was a pilot area in the city for the deworming campaign, only 1,009 parents out of 4,225 gave consent and had their children participate in the activity, according to Dr. Ronald Aba-a, the school’s principal. Each of the children was made to take a 400-milligram chewable tablet of Albendazole.

One parent, Manuel Jose Dalipe, who supported the deworming campaign, chewed a pill to try to convince other parents that it was good for their children. It didn’t work, however.

Dalipe admitted that the experience in June last year could be among the main reason for the hesitation of his fellow parents.

“Last year, I had my children take the pill. We went home and we were all shocked as we watched news on television of children down and rushed to hospitals. At home, we haven’t felt anything,” Dalipe said.

A total of 6,238 school children were rushed by their parents to hospitals in the city and in the Zamboanga provinces in the aftermath of last year’s deworming activity.

Dr. Joshua Brillantes, chief of the local health support division of the regional DOH office, said then that the panic was due to a text scare that claimed children had died from taking the medicine, because even those who did not show symptoms normally associated with the anthelmintic drug, like nausea and vomiting, were rushed by their parents to hospitals.

“The text scare was the culprit,” said Brillantes. “Parents panicked,” he said.

He described the adverse reaction of parents as a case of “epidemic hysteria.” Epidemic hysteria is defined as a “constellation of symptoms suggestive of organic illness that occurs between two or more people who share belief related to the symptoms.”

In Northern Mindanao, no adverse effect of Wednesday’s deworming campaign has been reported so far among children, said Josephine Ibalio, the deworming coordinator in the region.

She said only five children experienced nausea in Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental.

“Basically, those are just normal reactions,” said Ibalio, adding that children who take anthelmintic could also experience headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea. Julie S. Alipala, Jigger Jerusalem and Eldie Aguirre, Inquirer Mindanao