The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice-President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja.

Akande listed the states where the programme is currently operating to include Anambra, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Delta, Abia, Benue and Plateau.

Others are Bauchi, Taraba, Kaduna, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Imo, Jigawa and Niger states.

“So far, over five million pupils (5,226,039) in 28,249 schools in these states are currently being fed under the programme, while Kano and Katsina states are expected to be added to the beneficiaries’ states in the coming weeks.

“Also, over 50,000 cooks are currently engaged under the programme,” Akande said.

The programme has a target to feed 5.5 million schoolchildren by the end of 2017.

Meanwhile, Akande said the School Feeding Programme was collaborating with the Ministry of Health to deliver an integrated de-worming programme for pupils in all public primary schools from classes 1 to 6 across 17 states are currently under the NHGSFP in the country.

He said at least 243 Local Government Areas would benefit from the deworming  in the 17 states, including Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Niger, Osun, Bauchi, Jigawa, Katsina, Zamfara, Anambra, Benue, Imo, Kano, Kaduna, Ebonyi, Delta and Plateau states.

“The integrated programme, which is scheduled for the first and second weeks of December in these states, will deliver three different drugs for the treatment of diseases endemic to specific states; particularly schistosomiasis; soil-transmitted helminthes and river blindness/onchocerciasis. The drugs to be distributed are Albendazole, Ivermectin and Parazaquintel.

“Supported by the Federal Government, three facilitators would be within the states for the period to achieve these objectives and ensure that the pupils in these states are de-wormed,” he added.