Independent Monitoring of the Second Round of the School-Based Deworming Campaign in Phú Thọ, Hòa Bình, Thanh Hóa and Nghệ An, 2016

Project Overview

• Field: Communicable Disease Prevention
• Duration: 10/2016 – 12/2016; field monitoring concentrated in November and early December 2016
• Funder/supporter: East Meets West Foundation (EMW), with Evidence Action
• Implementing agency: Center for Environmental and Health Studies (CEHS)
• Location: 4 provinces — Phú Thọ, Hòa Bình, Thanh Hóa and Nghệ An

Introduction

East Meets West Foundation, with Evidence Action and Vietnamese government agencies, implemented a school-based deworming program in 4 target provinces to control soil-transmitted helminth infection among primary-school children. The second deworming round was conducted during the week of 28 November to 2 December 2016, comprising the main dosing day at schools and a mop-up day for children who missed the first round.

Independent monitoring and evaluation assessed the quality of frontline training, observed medication administration at schools, and verified the accuracy of campaign reports at the commune and school levels.

CEHS's Role

CEHS directly conducted independent monitoring of the entire second deworming round across the 4 project provinces. CEHS was responsible for developing the monitoring plan, recruiting and training the monitoring team, organizing data collection at training sessions, primary schools and commune health stations, and processing, analyzing data and finalizing the results report. CEHS mobilized 66 monitors comprising CEHS staff and faculty/staff from Thai Binh University of Medicine and Pharmacy.

Key Activities

• Monitoring training sessions for commune health workers and teachers before deworming day.
• Directly observing the deworming administration process at main schools and satellite schools.
• Interviewing commune health station staff, principals, homeroom teachers and students on communication, dosing, side-effect management and record-keeping.
• Verifying campaign coverage by cross-checking class rosters, health station reports and student responses.
• Cleaning data, double data entry, statistical analysis, and developing the summary report.

Key Results

• Completed 225 monitoring visits across 4 provinces, comprising 27 training monitoring visits, 66 deworming-day school visits, and 132 coverage verification visits.
• The campaign was generally well implemented across the 4 provinces; most commune health workers and teachers correctly followed the main steps of the school deworming process.
• Student deworming coverage per commune reports reached 97.2%, while cross-checked class roster data reached 96.7%; 97.5% of interviewed students confirmed receiving medication, and 99.6% of responses matched class roster records.
• Identified some implementation gaps, particularly at satellite schools, such as uneven pre-dosing counseling and small discrepancies between commune reports and class rosters in 8.3% of communes checked.
• Recommended sustaining provincial- and district-level monitoring and strengthening training for commune health workers and teachers to further improve campaign quality and coverage.