Jiggers !

Since the opening of St Bernadette’s & St Mary’s School we have noticed just how healthy and well cared for the children at the GLO are in comparison to the local children who attend the school daily. During one of the visits by our main donor for the school it was noticed that some of the children had Jigger Infestations in their feet.

Jiggers are parasite flies that burrow into the foot, lay eggs in there and this then spreads through out the rest of the foot until the foot is completely destroyed.This is a terrible illness to have as the wounds get so bad and spread to the hands then the children cant walk and suffer terrible pain. It is often so painful that the children struggle to walk so it was decided that something must be done to help these children in the school that were suffering from this affliction.

As Nico had first hand experience of how to treat them, he advised the staff what was to be done. Every child had their feet bathed and inspected for the parasite. On finding Jiggers, the infected area is soaked in an antiseptic solution and then the layers of dirty and dead skin are cut away.


The area is then treated with a fungal powder and the offending area is kept clean which is very difficult as the majority of children come to school in their bare feet.

Another noted problem that may be caused by jigger infestation is the risk of passing on blood transmitted infections such as HIV / AIDS by use of unsterilised equipment to remove the bugs from different people. Many children tend to share a single pin to extract jiggers – this is a situation that exposes individuals to the infection of HIV from those who already have the virus. So by introducing this programme to eradicate the problem we are also preventing HIV being spread.

A massive Asanta Sana to Nico, Margaret & our Askari who all are helping these children and hopefully very soon we will have a “Jiggers Free” School!!