Dili, February 25, 2025 (Média Democracia) – The World Health Organization (WHO) together with the Ministry of Health (MS) held the launch and orientation of the integrated research of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) on Trachoma, Yaws and Helminthiasis Transmission from Rai (SHT) in Timor-Leste. This activity was held in the ETDA hall.
According to WHO representative, Arvind Mathur, this activity is led by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with WHO and MOE, through the support provided by KOICA and WHO on tropical diseases that continue to impact vulnerable communities, especially children.
“Timor-Leste is at a critical juncture, having entered the post-zero Yaws alert phase, a key step towards the elimination target set out in the National Strategy Plan,” said WHO representative Arvind Mathur.
He continued, to ensure that transmission has stopped, serological research is needed, this test detects specific antibodies, providing more reasonable weight than just clinical observation.
“Trachoma awareness also includes, although all past studies (Correia et al., 2018) did not find active cases, this study ensures ongoing surveillance as part of a comprehensive NTD strategy.” He said.
He emphasized that STH will continue to pay attention to public health that has an impact on children’s growth and development. Parasite eradication efforts in Timor-Leste have reduced the prevalence of STH from 29% (2017) to 17.9% (2020), but the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the handling of the plan.
Meanwhile, school-based deparasitism began to occur in 2022 to 2024, data research was actualized to evaluate its impact.
“The aim of this study was to confirm the severity of Trachoma through serological tests in children aged 1-5 years. Verify the elimination of yaws by ensuring latent infection lives under conditions similar to WHO deficiency (1%). Evaluate the prevalence and intensity of STH infection in primary school children aged 6-14 years.” He added
He informed that to obtain information, data collection would be carried out for seven weeks, covering 5,485 children (aged 1-5 years) regarding yaws and trachoma from 1,960 children (aged 6-14 years) from 28 schools in the SHT study.
“A big thank you to the medical team, laboratory technicians, and the team in the SSK field for all their dedication. Please make sure children feel safe during the examination when taking blood through the finger, and adhere to strict prevention techniques to prevent complications.” He said.
He said that this research is a very important step to strengthen evidence-based politics and advance NTD eradication efforts in Timor-Leste. Let’s work together for a healthy future.
“I hope that from this validation study, MS will have the possibility to submit certification documents on the elimination of Yaws and Trachona to WHO and hope to achieve this certification.” He continued.
As a representative of the Ministry of Health, Merlinda Conseição Barros said that the implementation of the Mass Drug Administration (MDA) Program for four years throughout the territory of Timor-Leste from 2015 to 2019.
“Based on the National Integrated Tropical Disease Control Plan, the Ministry of Health that has implemented MDA 4 or 5 rounds must carry out integrated core activities (NTD) to show strong progress or reduce and control worm diseases with a prevalence of 29% (2017) and 17.9% (2020)” said the representative of the Ministry of Health.
She continued that therefore with this prevalence WHO wants to further support this survey activity for children in schools especially those aged 6-9 years in Elementary Schools as cycles 1 to 3 that have been identified in the survey plan.
“So far, the MDA implementation program has also included yaws disease which mostly attacks children under 15 years old and the NTD unit’s vigilance against yaws disease in 2018 (two positives in Aileu and Atauro) that there is a prevalence of less than 0% and in 2019 until now the NTD unit together with the HMIS Department continues to be vigilant and continues to record even though there are zero cases.” She said.
She emphasized that regarding Trachoma disease in the NTD unit as a new program and currently Timor-Leste will register Trachoma cases with zero prevalence and Trachoma disease survey as a database to Timor-Leste.
“The purpose of this survey is to control and see the prevalence of worms in the intestines of children with school students and the elimination of yaws and trachoma. This survey will also be divided into two parts, such as, a survey in schools about worms in children from grades 1 to 3 and a survey in the community that focuses more on yaws and trachoma in children aged 1-5 years.” She said.
She delivered a message and asked all of us to be able to implement this program well and successfully according to the predetermined schedule.
“Let’s work together to control worm disease in children and eradicate yaws and trachoma,” She said.
To further explained that this activity was held by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with WHO to provide training to health workers totaling 150 people from 13 municipalities regarding worms, yaws and trachoma diseases.
Reported by : Nelfiano
Picture by : Nelfiano