An international organization has awarded the Department of Education (DepEd) for its project to prevent and control diseases among children in public schools that often affects the kids performance. The DepEd's Essential Health Care Program (EHCP) has been recognized at the Global South-Souh Development Expo, a United Nations annual event, as one of the world's best primary health care for school children. It provides a health kit to every pupil consisting of soap for hand-washing, a toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste, and a deworming tablet given twice a year. Global South-South Development bestowed the award to tje DepEd in ceremonies at Washington DC on Dec. 17 this year.. The Fit For School Inc., a partner of Deped in carrying out the project, has been chosen as one of the three winning projects on health care for children.. In recent studies the DepEd, a group known as GTZ and the University of the Philippines (UP), it was known that diarrhea and respiratory tract infections are the leading causes of death among school children and that 67 percent of children are infected with intestinal worms. The same study showed that 97 percent of school children have tooth decay and blamed toothache as the main reason for absenteeism in school. EHCP seeks to reduce the incidence of diarrhea among public school children by 30-40 percent, bring down respiratory infections by 20-30 percent, and cut worm infections by 50 percent.
