The Importance Of Maintaining Cleanliness To Preventworming

Officers provide deworming drugs to toddlers at Posyandu Bougenvile, Depok City, West Java, Wednesday (7/8/2024). (ANTARA/Yulius Satria Wijaya/rwa)

JAKARTA memikukan. Mungkin itu kata yang tepat untuk menggambarkan kasus deworming yang dialami Raya, yang meninggal dunia akibat deworming.

Raya, a four-year-old toddler from Pandangeyan Village, Cianaga Village, Kabandungan District, Sukabumi Regency, West Java, breathed his last on July 22, 2025.

However, the news of Raya's death suddenly became a broad spotlight. According to the diagnosis, Raya suffers from deworming as well as tuberculosis (TBC). It is suspected that the deworming suffered due to Raya is often in an unhygienic place.

In critical condition at the hospital, the roundworm comes out of the nose and rectum. Professor of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia (FKUI) Saleha Sungkar said that roundworms can live in intestinal cavities. Female worms will lay eggs and the eggs can be removed from the body along with feces during bowel movements.

Summarized from various sources, in daily Raya is cared for by her grandmother because her parents experience mental and physical limitations. Her mother, Endah (38), is said to have a mental disorder, while her father, Udin (32), suffers from tuberculosis. Raya is suspected of being infected with tuberculosis from her father.

From the family's confession, Raya often plays under the house which is also a place to raise chickens.

It was the social foundation Rumah Teduh Sahabat Iin who first learned about Raya's condition. They then took him to the Syamsudin Regional General Hospital (RSUD) of Sukabumi City on July 13, 2025.

His condition is already critical. In hospital treatment, worms come out of his nose, genitals, and anus. According to the results of CTscan, worms have spread, even to the brain. Chairman of the West Java Indonesian Doctors Association Mohammad Luthfi informed that there were about 1 kilogram of roundworms (Ascarias lumbrioids) in Raya's body.

Even though he had received treatment, Raya died on July 22. The public was shocked and sad because there were still citizens who died from deworming.

Bandworms are the most large type of worm. The size of the male worm is about 10-30 centimeters (cm) and the female worm can be 22-35 cm in size. Female worms can lay 100,000 to 200,000 grains a day.

There are a number of ways to enter worms into the human body, including through food or drinks contaminated with worm eggs and dirty hands and having worm eggs on the dirt.

These worm eggs are generally accidentally swallowed or inhaled because of their very small size and difficulty visible to the eyes. The worm eggs that have entered the body then hatch and reproduce.

Professor of FKUI who is also a staff of the FKUI Parasiteology Department, Saleha Sungkar, said that roundworms can live in intestinal cavities. Female worms will lay eggs and the eggs can be removed from the body along with a feces when defecating.

"If children play in the ground and roundworm eggs stick to their hands then when the child holds food, the egg sticks to the food, and is swallowed along with food, the egg can enter the intestine and then hatch into a larvae in the delicate intestine," he said.

Saleha added that the fine intestines of the larvae turn into adult worms within 2-3 months. Looking at the size of the worm that is quite large in the body and reaches 1 kg, this condition can indicate repeated exposure and occurs for a long time.

What Raya experienced, according to Saleha, is an illustration that cleanliness and sanitation are still problems in the community. Because, the transmission of deworming disease is closely related to the habit of defecating (BAB) carelessly and there is no good habit of washing hands.

He also suggested the importance of education so that people can carry out clean and healthy living behavior. The worms, said Salega, can be prevented by not defecating carelessly, washing hands after holding the ground, washing hands before eating and after defecating, and always closing food so that it is not caught by flies.

Deworming actually does not have to reach a fatal condition that causes death if handled properly from an early age. Public awareness and concern for a clean and healthy life also needs to be improved so that the problem of deworming can be resolved.

In addition to maintaining cleanliness, prevention efforts can also be carried out by regularly taking worm medicine at least once every six months with a pamoat albendazole or pyrantel. The government itself through the Ministry of Health routinely administers worm medicine in the community at the age of 1-12 years in Posyandu in schools.