FAQs
The treatment can vary depending on the species and local regulations. In general terms, benzimidazoles (albendazole and mebendazole) are being used for hookworm (Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus), roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides) and whipworm (Trichuris trichiura); and ivermectin is recommended for threadworm (Strongyloides stercoralis). In some areas, the treatment for whipworms combines ivermectin with albendazole, as clinical evidence support the superior efficacy of the combination treatment.
Albenzadole is currently administered in a fixed, single dose (usually, 400 mg for anybody 24 months old and above) as a standard treatment for trichuriasis, ancylostomiasis or hookworm diseases. On the other hand, ivermectin is usually administered to treat strongyloidiasis with a dose based on body weight (targeting 200µg/kg) or height (based on WHO’s dosing poles).
Age-group based dosing is a proposed, logistically simpler alternative, supported by an Individual Participant Data meta-analysis published in 2025 by members of the STOP2030 Consortium
Treating with fixed-dose strategy frees the healthcare workers from using measuring tools (e.g. scales to weigh people, or dosing poles) often in unreliable circumstances. It also enhances safety, reducing the room for dosing errors.
Additionally, providing a fixed dose of ivermectin based on age-group can deliver the recommended dose to a greater percentage of the population and mitigate underdosing.
Ivermectin and albendazole are both antiparasitic medicines, but they differ in their mechanism of action. Ivermectin binds to the muscle and nerve cells of worms causing their paralysis, which leads to the organism’s death; whereas albendazole prevents the worms from absorbing the nutrients they need to survive (glucose in particular). Having different mechanisms of action prevents the survival of worms that can grow resistant to one of the drugs.
We are at the last stages of advancing the co-formulation and making it available to endemic countries and their public health programmes. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive scientific opinion on it on January, 2025. It has entered Ghana FDA and Kenya’s PPB for registration.
STOP2030 aims to provide greater evidence of its safety, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of the fixed-dose coformulation of ivermectin and albendazole. Commercialisation is not part of our project’s plan or goals.
With our work, we aim to advance this improved therapeutic option, and provide countries and other organisations (like WHO) with enough evidence to encourage public health control programmes, funders and donors to make it available where needed.
This combined treatment will be taken as a single dose or as a three-day regimen (i.e. once a day for three consecutive days). Treatments are repeated through deworming activities at a frequency based on the prevalence in each particular area as indicated by WHO´s control strategy. In high-prevalence areas every 6 months and annually in moderate-prevalence areas.
The main target populations are school-aged children (SAC, from 5 to 19 years old) and women of reproductive age (WRA, from 15 to 49 years old), which are currently prioritised by the strategies formulated by international health institutions (e.g. the World Health Organisation) to treat soil-transmitted helminth infections.
