Effect of a novel hygiene intervention on older children's handwashing in a humanitarian setting in Kahda district, Somalia: A cluster-randomised controlled equivalence trial.

INTRODUCTION: Improving handwashing with soap (HWWS) among children in humanitarian emergencies has the potential to reduce the transmission of several important infectious diseases. However, there is limited evidence on which approaches are effective in increasing HWWS among children in humanitarian settings. One recent innovation - the "Surprise Soap" intervention - was shown to be successful in a small-scale efficacy trial in a humanitarian setting in Iraq. This intervention includes soap with embedded toys delivered through a short household session comprising a glitter game, instruction of how and when to wash hands, and HWWS practice. Whilst promising, this approach has not been evaluated at programmatic scale in a complex humanitarian setting. METHODS: We conducted a cluster-randomised controlled equivalence trial of the Surprise Soap intervention in IDP camps in Kahda district, Somalia. Proportionate stratified random sampling was employed to recruit 200 households, with at least one child aged 5-12, across the camps. Eligible households were randomly allocated to receive the Surprise Soap intervention (n = 100) or an active comparator handwashing intervention in which plain soap was delivered in a short household session comprising standard health-based messaging and instruction of how and when to wash hands (n = 100). The primary outcome was the proportion of pre-specified occasions when HWWS was practiced by children aged 5-12 years, measured at baseline, 4-weeks, 12 weeks, and 16 weeks post invention delivery. RESULTS: HWWS increased in both groups (by 48 percentage points in the intervention group and 51 percentage points in the control group, at the 4-week follow up), however, there was no evidence of a difference in HWWS between the groups at the 4-week (adjusted RR (aRR) = 1.0, 95% CI 0.9-1.1), 12-week (aRR = 1.1, 95% CI 0.9-1.3), or 16-week (aRR = 1.0, 95% CI 0.9-1.2) follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: In this complex humanitarian setting, where soap availability and past exposure to handwashing promotion was low, it appears that well-designed, household-level targeted handwashing interventions that include soap provision can increase child HWWS and potentially reduce disease risk, but the Surprise Soap intervention offers no marginal benefit over a standard intervention that would justify the additional costs.

A multi-country, prospective cohort study to measure rate and risk of relapse among children recovered from severe acute malnutrition in Mali, Somalia, and South Sudan: a study protocol.

BACKGROUND: The Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) model transformed the treatment of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) by shifting treatment from inpatient facilities to the community. Evidence shows that while CMAM programs are effective in the initial recovery from SAM, recovery is not sustained for some children requiring them to receive treatment repeatedly. This indicates a potential gap in the model, yet little evidence is available on the incidence of relapse, the determinants of the phenomena, or its financial implications on program delivery. METHODS: This study is a multi-country prospective cohort study following "post-SAM" children (defined as children following anthropometric recovery from SAM through treatment in CMAM) and matched community controls (defined as children not previously experiencing acute malnutrition (AM)) monthly for six months. The aim is to assess the burden and determinants of relapse to SAM. This study design enables the quantification of relapse among post-SAM children, but also to determine the relative risk for, and excess burden of, AM between post-SAM children and their matched community controls. Individual -, household-, and community-level information will be analyzed to identify potential risk-factors for relapse, with a focus on associations between water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) related exposures, and post-discharge outcomes. The study combines a microbiological assessment of post-SAM children's drinking water, food, stool via rectal swabs, dried blood spots (DBS), and assess for indicators of enteric pathogens and immune function, to explore different exposures and potential associations with treatment and post-treatment outcomes. DISCUSSION: This study is the first of its kind to systematically track children after recovery from SAM in CMAM programs using uniform methods across multiple countries. The design allows the use of results to: 1) facilitate understandings of the burden of relapse; 2) identify risk factors for relapse and 3) elucidate financial costs associated with relapse in CMAM programs. This protocol's publication aims to support similar studies and evaluations of CMAM programs and provides opportunities for comparability of an evidence-based set of indicators for relapse to SAM.