Probe individuals behind poisonous deworming, gov’t told

An activist has condemned an incident where learners consumed unfit deworming tablets in Ibba County, Western Equatoria State two weeks ago.

The Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Edmund Yakani blamed the botched deworming on the poor coordination between the national and state ministries of health. He called for the investigation to unearth those who failed to do their job properly leading to the incident.

“It is an unfortunate situation…our medical authorities are messing up starting from national up the state level,” said Yakani in an interview with The City Review on Wednesday.

Yakani condemned the behavior of forcing the children to take the medicine on an empty stomach.

He added that had there been proper coordination between experts from the national level and state level, the distribution of the medicine would not have degenerated into a disastrous ending as it did.

 “You cannot threaten somebody’s life because you want to experiment or you want to test certain things on them,” he protested.

 “So for me, whoever is behind the mess in Ibba must be held accountable or should apologize. We need a clear statement from the concerned authority on what went wrong and how are they committing themselves to correct and not to repeat the particular mistake in future,” Yakani urged.

However, according to the Director-General of External Affairs in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Kedende Chong, the adverse drug reaction was an isolated case because it has been in use for years.

“There was a probability of overdose. They may not be treated accurately as an overdose because it might not be a real overdose or an intended overdose or out of ignorance in such a situation for the drug. They must be reliable and the parameter used is the weight,” Dr. Chong explained to The City Review.

 Dr. Chong said it is recommended that administrators use the height and roughly calculate the dose according to each height of the child under the ideal situation.  Chong said a person weighing 15Kgs should take a tablet because the drug is meant for adults.

“But those that are not adults you look at their weight and therefore, there must a weighing scale available. When it is 15 kg or less or if it is 30 kg or less you give 2 tablets if it is 45 kg and above you give 3 tablets between 15 and 20 kg you give 1 tablet,” he said.

He clarified that the major cause of the adverse effect could have been because the learners took medicine on an empty stomach.

He also blamed the ministry of education for not providing a program to schools across the county, adding the ministry should shoulder the blame for failing to provide training and due diligence for such a medication program.

“Definitely with the assurance from the presidency, will have to make another thorough investigation although such things are obvious,” Dr. Chong assured the public.

Last week, the Council of Ministers has directed the Vice President for Service Cluster Hussein Abdelbagi and the Ministry of Health to form a committee to investigate the incident again after he presented a preliminary report to the council on Friday.

Over 100 children in Ibba Girls Boarding School developed adverse drug complications after taking the deworming tablet on an empty stomach.