Under the sponsorship of World Bank (WB) Yemen kicked off on Sunday its national anti-schistosomiasis campaign at a government school some 30Km north of the capital, Sana'a, in Bait Khairan.
The campaign will cover 160 districts distributed across 12 governorates. It will aim to target 45% of Yemen 24 million population by focusing on all children of school age.
A recent report of the World Health Organization (2012) showed that Yemen was vulnerable to schistosomiasis, a waterborne disease with devastating long term effects on one's health if left untreated. WHO registered 600,000 severe chronic cases throughout Yemen within a pool of 3 million carriers, 1/8 of Yemen total population.
Doctor Abduallah al-Ajhbari in Taiz explained a schistosoma infection is contracted when an individual is put in contact with contaminated water. The parasite will enter the system through the skin where it will mature and then migrate to a person's lungs and liver.
Symptoms include fever, lymph node enlargement, liver and spleen enlargement.
If untreated, schistosomiasis can lead to chronic kidney failure, kidney and bladder obstruction, pulmonary hypertension, bladder cancer and heart failure.
Although easily treatable, schistosomiasis continues to ravage Yemen poorest populations as access to clean water and adequate health care are at best spotty and unreliable.
The health authorities aided by WB are now trying to turn the tide.