Five year-old Remy Iteriteka needs medicine for worms.

Remy Iteriteka, 5, lives at Buvyukana sub hill of Gasorwe zone, Muyinga province, in the northeast of Burundi. Remy was rejected by his mother after her husband divorced her. His elder brother has already died. He passed away after some days of diarrhoea. Remy’s health is not good, he has a swollen belly. His grandfather remembers that he once suffered from worms and suspects that his swollen belly would be the same worms causing him trouble, but does not have means to bring him to hospital.

“Cold.” Except that word cold, Remy did not say much when asked him how he feels.

“He never moves far from the sun,” his nephew told us when we arrive at his grandfather’s compound. Remy is sitting in the courtyard under a heavy sun.

“Things are difficult, that is my grandson; he was left here by one of my daughters who did not succeed in her marriage,” explains Jean Manirakiza, Remy’s grandfather.

When Remy’s mother and father divorced, his mother rejected him and left him at his grandfather’s home and went to get married elsewhere. Remy lives in his grandfather’s compound with other six children. He passes his time sitting nearby the goat stable.

Jean Manirakiza, his grandfather, knows where the health facilities are but does not go there because of lack of money, Kizi, Gikwiye and Bwasare, those are the health facilities in his locality and he knows them but does not bring Remy to one of them, he does not have money to pay, he says.

“We wait for the deworming from our government, otherwise people here, can’t afford paying hospital fees;” says Jean Manirakiza

“He does not like to play with us, he is always quiet and stays on the sun,” says one of the other six children.

We worry about his situation; Remy was left by her mother when he was seven months old, with his elder brother. The brother died three years ago.

They believed that he was bewitched. He died after some days of diarrhoea, there was no one caring about him, and he was raised by his aunt.

Helene Nibigira, a nurse working in pediatrics department of Muyinga Hospital, advises parents not to rely on the government’s deworming. It depends upon the availability of medicines. The deworming organized by the government is not regular; Helene has noticed that the government can even spend a whole year without the deworming campaign.

“Sometimes there is no enough medicine for all the children.” she says

That nurse warns parents, parasites can cause death if they do not take children to hospitals. She advises them if possible to take them to hospitals four times a year for deworming.