Deparasiting

After months of working to get the deparasiting component of the project started we finally have things up and running thanks to the help of the Rotary doctors and various donations of medicine. There are currently five doctors in the Santa Barbara Rotary Club and all of them have committed to help us with do deparasiting. We met with the doctors to discuss the type of medicine we would use and when each of them could accompany us to the communities to hand out the medicine. Although handing out the medicine is simple, having a doctor with us gives us added credibility in the community and allows the Rotary member an opportunity to support the project.

We were thankful to get a total of 1,100 doses of anti-parasite medicine donated to us from Robert Turner and Agua Pura. Robert Turner is a college student from Idaho who visits Honduras multiple times a year to work with filters and do deparasiting. He gave us 500 doses of Albendazole in tablets and 200 doses of Albendazole in suspension. Maria also gave us 400 doses of Albendazole in tablets. We were able to use these medications to do our first deparasiting in Jimilile, Arada. Overall things went very smoothly and quickly. Albendazole is straight forward, safe and easy to administer. Babies from 1-2 years of receive 200 mg in liquid form and everyone above 2 years of age receives 400 mg in liquid or tablet form depending on their age. There is no weighing necessary and the entire amount is given all at once. The tablet is chewable and tastes surprisingly good (Allison, our Peace Corps volunteer, ate one), little kids had no problem sucking on it. Although the tablet is chewable and tasty many of the women that came in to get the medication were either scared or embarrassed to eat it in front of us. We would give it to them and tell them to eat it and they would just hold it in their hand and smile and say they would eat it later. We preferred they all take the medication in front of us so we could insure that they wouldn’t use it or give it to somebody else. It took quite a bit of coaxing for some of the women, but we got all of them to eat it on the spot.
The liquid form also tastes good (Chris, our last Agua Pura volunteer, had some) but it can be more of a challenge to get the babies to drink it. They have a tendency to cry and spit it up.

This baby is surprisingly cooperative.

Although the process went very smoothly in Jimilile, it was our first time and we still need to work out a few kinks. Originally we thought that we would only give medication to those who actually came to us and got it, yet we realize now that this will almost always leave out a large portion of the community. In total, there are 244 beneficiaries in Jimilile, but we only gave medicine to 134 people, mostly women and children. Very few men or older boys came because they were working on the coffee farms. Although women and children are the most important groups to reach, we would still like to reach as many as possible. Therefore, we need to consider the possibility of giving extra medication to the female head of the household if she comes but her husband or children can’t come.

We are also considering the possibility of giving another type of medication in addition to or in place of Albendazole. Although Albendazole is preferable because is easy and cheap ($0.03 for one tablet and $0.50 for one bottle) it does not kill amoebas that are commonly found in Honduras. Therefore we are investigating the possibility of coupling it with another medication that will kill amoebas, to do a more thorough job.