WHO supports to scale up and strengthen prevention activities and health interventions in schools

The School Health team of the Ministry of Health and Sports presented an assessment of the situation for school health in Myanmar at a meeting attended by the Deputy Director General of Public Health Department, Dr. Yin Thandar Lwin, officials of the Ministry of Health and Sports and by the Medical Officer responsible for School Health of WHO Myanmar.

Despite the difficulties faced by the School Health team (limited funding available and an initial presence of only 80 school health teams across the country’s 330 townships – now scaled up to full 330 teams), very positive results have been achieved in recent years: for instance, the dramatic success at national level of deworming campaigns for school children, with a drastic decrease in prevalence of soil-transmitted helminthiasis from 70% in 2002 to 21% in 2012. However, many challenges remain to be addressed. The prevalence of anaemia amongst school children, for example, still stands at a high 36%, according to the 2012 school health survey.

The WHO Medical Officer discussed with MoHS counterparts the priority issues for scaling up school health activities in Myanmar and analysed in detail the possible strategies to be applied. School Health numbers as one of the top priorities of the new Government of Myanmar. The policies and strategies will be jointly discussed and endorsed by the Ministry of Health and Sports and the Ministry of Education in a day multisectoral workshop to develop the School Health plans for 2017-2022, likely to be held in December 2016 with WHO support.