Journal
TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE
Volume 104, Issue 11, Pages 740-742Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.trstmh.2010.07.012
Keywords
Child health; Neglected tropical diseases; Control programmes; Preventive chemotherapy; Mass drug administration; Tablet pole
Funding
- Wellcome Trust, Health Foundation UK
- Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
- Wellcome Trust, UK
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In large-scale interventions for control of schistosomiasis, use of the WHO dose pole is favoured for mass drug administration of praziquantel. Application of this simple tool has enabled pragmatic tablet dosing using patient height as a proxy for bodyweight, allowing control programmes to expand into resource-poor settings. Here we briefly summarize the inception and development of the existing WHO dose pole and discuss a proposed update which now permits dosing of infants and preschool children (height < 94 cm). Using this pole, we suggest that mass drug administration can be better optimized, streamlining general treatment to reduce drug wastage which could lead to significant programmatic savings and allocation of treatments to younger children with minimal additional cost. (C) 2010 Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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