National Project Implementation Plan - NVBDCP

area, and a strengthened supply chain of key malaria control commodities such
as RDTs and ACTs with the aim of minimizing stock outages and commodity
leakages from health center stores. This arrangement will however, be further
strengthened after judging the capacity of ASHA and MTS during the project
period.
8.2 Distribution of LLINs
National policy for the use of LLINs is currently crystallizing on a position to
scale up as rapidly as possible for universal coverage of LLIN target
populations. Presently, the target population is a village or sub-center area
with intense transmission (indicated by API above 5/1000), and poor
accessibility for IRS operations (for example, roads inaccessible during the
rainy season).
The erstwhile World Bank assisted project provides the opportunity to evaluate
alternative models of distribution and social mobilization activities. In this
group of evaluations, the control will be constituted by the NVBDCP policy of
public sector distribution of two LLINs to each household at no cost. Against
this control activity, two potential modes of distribution aimed at increasing the
total coverage and proper usage of LLINs will be compared. These two
activities are:
1. Priming households with the free distribution of one LLIN to households
the first year, followed up by another LLIN distributed in the following
year (i.e. a 1+1 vs 2 approach)
2. Free LLINs distributed to all households through cooperation with local
community based organizations, notably self-help-groups (SHGs).
The first treatment intervention will test the effect that experience of one net
by the household has on their take up of the second net in the following year.
Given that LLINs are scarce in comparison with the size of the eligible
population; effective coverage may possibly be higher if only one net per
household were distributed initially since twice as many households will be
covered. Furthermore, if a “priming” effect on net adoption, through direct
experience, is important then higher usage rate may be achieved if nets are
delivered in an incremental scheme rather than all at once. This approach
would also have the additional benefit of reducing the household incentive to
sell freely provided valuable goods to local markets.
In the second intervention, local SHGs will work with the government
distribution mechanisms and take responsibility for social mobilization efforts
as well as the monitoring of LLIN distribution and initial use. SHGs have
traditionally been a small group of persons (primarily women) who come
together with the intention of accessing micro-credit programs. SHGs may
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