Deworming drugs for soil-transmitted intestinal worms in children: effects on nutritional indicators, haemoglobin and school performance

The effects of giving deworming drugs to children to treat soil-transmitted intestinal worms on weight, haemoglobin, and cognition; and the evidence of impact on physical well being, school attendance, school performance, and mortality are summarized.

Abstract

Screening children for intestinal helminths and then treating infected children appears promising, but the evidence base is small. Routine deworming drugs given to school children has been more extensively investigated, and has not shown benefit on weight in most studies, except for substantial weight changes in three trials conducted 15 years ago or more. Two of these trials were carried out in the same high prevalence setting. For haemoglobin, community deworming seems to have little or no effect, and the evidence in relation to cognition, school attendance, and school performance is generally poor, with no obvious or consistent effect. Our interpretation of this data is that it is probably misleading to justify contemporary deworming programmes based on evidence of consistent benefit on nutrition, haemoglobin, school attendance or school performance as there is simply insufficient reliable information to know whether this is so.