Kuteteza: Village-led participatory COVID-19 implementation and evaluation to shield 60+ year olds in rural Malawi, and contribute to global evidencebased for low-income settings
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Date
2021-07-07
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
Prospective observational ecological evaluation of a community-led behaviour change
epidemic response
Problem: The Kuteteza Project team; a collaboration involving researchersinvolving and doctorsand researchers from Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust, Society of Medical Doctors and College of Medicine, Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Disabiility. Disability and eldery the Elderly, is planning to evaluate an ongoing COVID-19 epidemic response initiative, implementedimplementing a COVID-19 emergency response Programme in the districts of Chikwawa, Blanatyre and Mangochi.
The initiative has been a community-led emergency response at district and national levels, aiming to protect older people - at highest risk from COVID morbidity and mortality – from the worst effects of the disease through ‘shielding’1.
In order to gauge the effectiveness of this initiative, and contribute to the evidence base for COVID-19 management in LMIC community settings, Against the background that the COVID-19 outbreak response in Malawi has centred in urban settings, and that extent of spread into rural communities is less clear, with concerns particularly around the larger proportion of older people -at highest risk
In brief, the “Kuteteza” initiative, working together with village leaders and Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs), has involved village-level volunteers supporting voluntary self-identification of older people in each village and rearrangement of living spaces and basic necessities (food, water,etc), to allow their supported “shielding” within a household area, minimising contact with the rest of the community. For full details of “Kuteteza” implementation, see appendix 1. of severe COVID-19 outcomes-the Kuteteza team is piloting a community-led shielding strategy to mitigate impacts of COVID-19 in rural settingsnow planning an evaluation of the response to date.
Broad Objective : To implement and evaluate the feasibility and impact acceptability of a the “Kuteteza” shielding initiative: a district and national level response involving supported, community-led shielding strategy of the elderly (aged 60 years and over) to mitigate impacts of COVID-19 in rural settings among those known to be at higher risk of complications if infected with SARS-CoV-2s in Malawi.
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Covid-19 Implementation and Evaluation