Effect of Prompting the Supply of Zinc/LO-ORS Co-packs in the Private Sector Plus BCI on Childhood Diarrhea Treatment

Diarrhoea accounts for 7% of all under-five deaths in Kenya. Recent experiences in other countries show that the private health sector can be successfully harnessed to improve diarrhoea treatment coverage.

This study assesses the effect of prompting the supply of zinc and low-osmolarity oral rehydration salts (LO-ORS) co-packs in the private sector coupled with increasing the demand for co-packs among caregivers on: 1) the treatment of uncomplicated childhood diarrhoea, 2) care-seeking in the private sector, and 3) availability of co-packs in the private sector.

The target population will be children under five years of age and their caregivers in Vihiga County. The study will use a effectiveness-implementation hybrid design with two arms: 1) children and caregivers from areas that receive the current standard of care and will be exposed to standard BCC and 2) children and caregivers from areas where the private sector component will be implemented and that will be exposed to a modified BCC. Two of the five existing sub-counties in Vihiga will be selected by convenience to be assigned to one of the two study arms. The selection will take into account geographical distance between the two sub-counties (i.e. maximizing the distance between the two counties to minimize cross-pollination between the two study groups), rural vs urban population, and number of operational community units and CHV in each sub-county. All private sector retailers within each sub-county will be identified with assistance from wholesalers. Retailers will be invited to participate in the study via sensitization meetings.

Baseline and endline assessments will be conducted at the household level to collect information on care-seeking practices, availability of the co-pack in the household, treatment of diarrhoea, and whether caregivers received information from shopkeepers on using the co-pack. Monitoring of process indicators will be conducted throughout the intervention period. The monitoring process will also be used to evaluate the adoption and feasibility of the implementation model. In addition, the endline survey will be used to evaluate the acceptability, adoption, and coverage of the implementation model.

Inclusion criteria

• All children under 5 years of age who live in the selected areas to be included in the study are eligible to participate. All children in area selected for the intervention will be exposed to the private sector component and the modified BCC.
• In addition, all private sites (shops, kiosks, chemists) in the intervention area will be eligible to participate in the study.

Exclusion criteria

• None