COVID 19 has triggered unprecedented social and economic crisis which poses grave risks to the nutritional status and survival of young children in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Of particular concern is an expected increase in child malnutrition, including wasting, due to steep declines in household incomes, changes in the availability and affordability of nutritious foods, and interruptions to health, nutrition, and social protection services.
Based on these fundamental issues, Association for Reproductive and Family Health (ARFH) was contracted by the Nutrition International (NI) to implement the Emergency Response COVID-19 Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS) Project titled Accelerated & Resilient Scale-up of Vitamin-A Supplement (VAS) Project in three States (Cross River, Rivers and Sokoto) in Nigeria. Apart from Rivers State where ARFH is supporting the State Primary Health Care Development Agency to reach eligible children in the 321 wards of the state, the efforts of vitamin A supplementation in Sokoto and Cross Rivers is basically in the hard to reach areas.
The 13months intervention runs from 1st September 2021 to 31st October 2022. The performance table of ARFH on the intervention as at the sixth month of intervention is presented below
| Target | Achievement so far | Comment |
| Map and categorize with state MNCH teams 500 hard to reach areas in Sokoto, Cross rivers and Rivers State.
|
1,928 | Though target was 500 HTRAs, available analysis shows far more than 500 HTRAs. With her pro-activeness, ARFH was able to work with the GoN to identify 1,928 areas that could be supported |
| Liaise with NI ISG and other partners to support states in the development of 64 micro-plans which will be included in the MNCHW plans at state level in Sokoto, Cross river and Rivers State.
|
64 | ARFH worked with other partners to support 64 (18 in CRS, 23 in Rivers and 23 in Sokoto) LGAs to develop micro-plans |
| Conduct at least 250 outreaches (50 in Cross River state, 50 in Sokoto and 150 in Rivers state) | 2,922 | Using the existing resources, ARFH conducted a total of 2,922 outreaches across the three states. |
| Reach 2,589,852 children 6 – 59 months (~863,194 children 6- 59 months per outreach round for each semester) with VAS across the 3 states | 1,979,240 | In the first of two Rounds, ARFH has achieved the supplementation of 76.4% |
| Train at least 1,250 Health workers/CHVs) for service delivery and data management | 3555 | As part of ARFH’s value for money policy, community health workers were trained as ad hoc staff, using local resources. |