Optimizing community health workers and nonbiomedical approaches to assess the burden of soil-transmitted helminthiasis in a school-aged population in rural Rwanda

Authors: Anatole Manzi, Benjamin Katz, Daniel Nguyen, Emrakabe Bekele, Joseph Niyonzima, Olive Nyiraneza, Lisa R Hirschhorn

This study explored whether community health workers in rural Rwanda could use a simple checklist to spot children who might have worm infections. CHWs screened 746 students and referred many for treatment or gave deworming medicine at school. Children who had regular CHW follow-up and those who didn’t walk barefoot were less likely to show symptoms. The results suggest that CHWs can use this kind of tool to catch possible infections early and guide children to care. More research is needed to confirm how accurate and scalable this approach could be.