Antiparasitics Drugs in Nigeria

Deworming is practically a national ritual — albendazole or mebendazole every few months for schoolchildren, often for the whole household, at a cost of a few hundred naira. Alongside that quiet routine run two of global health's great campaigns, both Nigerian success stories in progress: ivermectin distributed free against river blindness, and praziquantel given in school programmes against schistosomiasis (bilharzia), the waterborne infection behind blood in the urine of children who swim in streams.

These medicines are cheap, safe, and dramatically effective — a single dose usually does the job. The category's one modern caution involves ivermectin's internet fame as a COVID remedy: the evidence never supported it, and the veterinary formulations some people resorted to are genuinely dangerous. For parasites, though, it remains exactly what it always was — essential medicine.