Perceived effectiveness of SMC.
malaria, helminths
MALARIA, SAID, WORMS, COMPLICATIONS
Interviews with the parents/caregivers of the children who received the combined drugs revealed that the perceived effectiveness of SMC was the primary factor that motivated their willingness to enroll their children in the trial. Most of the parents interviewed emphasized the decline in malaria burden among Saraya children was due to the annual implementation of SMC campaigns. They maintained that the rainy season was usually a difficult time for children in the community because of the increased incidence of malaria and the associated complications. They observed that most children who took the SMC drugs during the campaigns did not develop malaria throughout the rainy season. Many parents and trial staff narrated specific cases where children died after parents’ refusal to allow their children to take SMC drugs.I witnessed a fact in my household, my brother refused to administer the malaria drugs to his children. I didn’t know initially that he did this because I was in another area. A few days later, one of his daughters fell ill with malaria, we took her to the health center and was referred to Kédougou regional hospital but she eventually died. That’s why I say the district needs to take action on parents who withhold drugs from their children. But every year we do prevention against malaria and the children who take their malaria medicine regularly have not had the difficulty of contracting malaria during the wet season, as we understand the difference between the children who have taken the medicine and the children who did not take the drug. It is useful for children because the difference is that these children, as I said, do not have malaria unlike the others who had not taken it. Given the aforementioned demonstration of confidence in the benefits of SMC, many parents/caregivers expressed their belief that the combined malaria–helminth treatment approach would have the same results in rolling back malaria and helminths.Because we understood the usefulness of SMC drugs in successfully rolling back malaria. We understood, we saw the results. The same thing will happen for this new approach. I accepted because I saw the benefits of the SMC malaria campaign. I agreed because I believe the benefits of this combined treatment will be successful like that of SMC, and I don’t want my kids to get sick again because of malaria and worms. 