OPT-SMC: Burkina Faso project

SMC was adopted in 2014 in Burkina Faso and expanded to all districts in 2016. The intervention is administered over 4-5 rounds between July and November to all children aged 3 to 59 months. Overall SMC coverage in Burkina Faso is high (>80%). However, there are disparities between urban and rural health districts, with lower coverage in urban areas compared to rural areas.

The OPT-SMC project for Burkina Faso was a qualitative study carried out to explore the reasons for the disparity in the coverage of SMC campaigns between urban and rural areas. Secondary objectives were to compare barriers and facilitators in the adoption of SMC in urban and rural areas; to identify best practices for improving the coverage and quality of SMC; and to propose realistic and relevant actions to improve SMC coverage in Burkina Faso.

A number of best practices were identified and recommendations based on these findings were developed. These include:  digitalization of the campaign to improve data quality; recruit sufficient numbers of drug distributors, each with allocated to cover a specific area; and involve more community leaders in the distribution of SMC in large towns. For urban areas, more time must be given to training community distributors; private health-care structures must also be engaged to reach children from privileged backgrounds; and social media must also be used to improve communication in urban areas. And finally, social networks must be increasingly used to improve communication in urban centers and to start raising awareness early enough before the SMC campaigns commence.

The study was presented at the EDCTP 3 Forum in Paris, November 2023.