In Bahari, a fictional country in East Africa, many people are infected with intestinal worms. As recommended by the World Health Organization, the country’s focus has been on administering deworming medications to children in primary schools. However, as a result, many adolescents and adults have not been dewormed. The number of worm infections in Bahari is not decreasing and government officials believe it may be due to ongoing infections in these older age groups. The Ministry of Health (MOH) has decided that it will launch a new community-wide deworming campaign to make sure that everyone in the population—children, adolescents, and adults—is dewormed. The government’s goal is to stop the spread of intestinal worm infections and to improve the overall health of the community.

Jane Daktari, the director of MOH in Bahari, expressed hesitancy that the community-wide campaign will be successful. She said, “How do we know that providing deworming to all of the members in our community will be effective?” Mary Kitenge, a county-level MOH office, added, “Local health system personnel have their own concerns. We will try our best to make sure that there is high coverage in all targeted villages but it will be difficult because people will not feel interested in dealing with worms. I’m not sure there is buy-in at the local level.” John Kanga, the Neglected Tropical Disease Programme Manager, said, “We have been implementing the school deworming campaign for several years now and will use that experience to make sure the community-wide campaign is a success. We have the necessary resources, as the national MOH has allocated funding in its annual budget to include the community-wide deworming campaign and we have a large number of community health workers who can administer the deworming medicines.” Despite her concerns, Daktari added, “This is a high priority campaign for the Ministry so we will be sure to carefully schedule the campaign until after the rainy season for ease of implementation,” said Daktari.