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Field Article
ment areas of these two Primary Heath Care
Centres (PHC) confirmed a high prevalence of
acute malnutrition where 15.5% of the children
had MUAC below 125 mm 2 .
There were and remain two Supplementary
Feeding Programme (SFP) centres located in the
area within the PHC. The catchment area of the
two centres was estimated to have a population
of 10,000 people with 1,500 children under five
years of age. These centres usually saw high
numbers of children with moderate acute
malnutrition (MAM) enrolled in the SFP
programme throughout the year. The admission
numbers for MAM cases in 2009 for the two SFP
centres in Mukuram can be seen in Table 1. Very
high numbers of admission were seen at the SFP
centres located in Mukaram in March 2010 at the
start of the pilot. This may have been due to
intensive communication with the community
prior to the start of the pilot combined with the
provision of a blanket food ration, thereby
attracting greater numbers of MAM children
into the Mukaram catchment area.
Figure 1 shows the trend in admission of
malnourished children from January 2009 to
December 2010 in ten SFP centres in Kassala,
including those in Mukaram. This is presented
as a percentage of MAM cases enrolled in the
SFP relative to the estimated number of children
under five in the catchment area of each of
the centres (15% of the catchment population).
The the coverage of SFP in the catchment areas
is unknown. Seasonal trends are observed with
higher prevalence rates during the lean season
(May – Sept) 3 and lower rates during the
postharvest season (Oct-Dec). The coverage of
the SFP in Kassala is unknown 4 .
Pilot intervention design
The design of the pilot study included intensive
community engagement and sensitisation. A
community club was established in each of the
health centres. The clubs were equipped with
cooking facilities for recipe development/trials,
toys to entertain children while their mothers
participated in discussions, and other essential
resources. These facilitated participation of
women in the discussion/awareness sessions
held in the clubs twice a week. Prior to the
establishment of the clubs, meetings were held
with the community elders to sensitise them to
the objective of the programme and also to
identify and select community change agents.
The tasks of the ‘community change agents’
(the frontline workers of the intervention)
included support to the MoH staff in growth
monitoring of the children enrolled in the BSFP,
keeping children entertained during the club
Table 2: Nutrition status of children enrolled in the
BSFP pilot
Month
Total number of
children