By Ahmed Osman

At about 10 am amid the searing heat and dust Ali Adan, 42, a Community Health Volunteer (CHV) is doing his routine visit to a homestead. This homestead however is not ordinary. It is a nomadic community unit made up of 30 households. The community units are the lowest level health service delivery structures with a population of up to 5, 000 persons served by CHVs. Adan has been trained by Save the Children through the support of the Nomadic Health Project (NHP) funded by BMGF to be able to provide an array of services to nomadic communities. Nomadic communities in North Eastern Kenya are underserved by health services because they are constantly on the move usually in remote areas in search of pasture and water for their animals away from health and social services. Due to these reasons the area records high maternal mortality and child deaths. According to UNFPA Mandera ranks as having the highest maternal mortality rate in the country with 3,795 per100, 000 live birth while Wajir has 1,683 maternal deaths per 10,000 live birth.

Adan is among 11 other CHVs that have been trained to treat minor ailments and injuries such as diarrhea. He refers pregnant women for antenatal services and children for vaccinations. He is also tasked to provide the nomadic population with health education. Before he was trained no one in his community had basic health knowledge and common childhood illness like diarrhea was rampant. Consequently child immunization was low and many mothers delivered at home.

The project run by Save the Children aims to improve access to health services especially access to reproductive health services and family planning to the Nomads who constitute 60% of the population in Wajir and Mandera counties according to the Kenya National Households Survey 2009. The project formed 15 nomadic community units in Wajir and Mandera where CHVs were trained to deliver basic health services to nomadic communities while they are on the move. The services provided to these community units include treatments of minor ailments, nutritional screening, disease surveillance, health education, immunisation and referral. So far over 37,000 nomadic children have received various health services through the project.

“The incidence of diarrhoea among children under five years old has reduced dramatically and today many nomadic children can get vaccines and deworming medicines for the first time in their life time while on the move,” said Aden Abdullahi.

COVID-19 Interventions

There are currently 16 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wajir County. Abdullahi said that CHVs in the community units remain useful and continue to provide health information on the virus to the nomadic populations. “They are supporting contact tracing and linking of suspected to health facilities. They also play a critical role of decongesting health facilities by providing essential services at community level,” he added.