Karen Department of Health and Welfare of Annual Report 2011

Karen Village Health Worker Program
Program Background
The training of village health workers (VHWs) by MHC medics initially occurred in the malaria
control program when medics sought to establish a presence in more distant villages. Since
2009 the program has been administered independently and has been expanded to reach 16
clinic areas with a population of 37,190. The goals of the program are:
• To improve village health
• To teach members of the community to protect themselves from disease
• To change the care seeking patterns within the village
• To provide basic health care to villagers where there is no clinic access
• To encourage community ownership and demand for KDHW services.
Focusing first on diarrhea, KDHW conducted a baseline survey of a population of 3,540 people
(including 665 under five years old) with assistance from the Global Health Access Program
(GHAP) in 2009. The results in Table 5 showed that there was a high prevalence of diarrhea and
a clear need for education on giving oral rehydration therapy. In the population of children
under five years, 16% had had diarrhea during the previous two weeks. Oral rehydration
solution (ORS) use among those with diarrhea at any age was only about 45%.
Table 5. Data from the KVHWP baseline survey in 2009
Diarrhea in people 5+ years 3%
ORS use in people 5+ that had diarrhea 33%
Diarrhea in children < 5 years old 16%
ORS use in children <5 that had diarrhea 54%
Diarrhea (all ages) 5%
ORS use among those with diarrhea (all ages) 45%
Program Services
The Karen Village Health Worker Program (KVHWP) focuses on education and prevention of
malaria and diarrhea using health workers based in the communities. KVHWP aims to have one
VHW for a population of 200 people. Thus, one or two VHWs live in each village of a program
area. VHWs visit every house in their village twice a month. During these house visits, they give
health education, do testing for malaria and give treatments.
There are two levels of VHW, the first level being trained to teach about and treat diarrhea.
Level 1 VHWs teach hand washing with soap or ashes for prevention of diarrhea, and how to
make ORS to treat dehydration.
Level 2 VHWs treat and educate villagers about malaria, in addition to diarrhea, following the
strategy of the Karen Malaria Control Program (KMCP). The strategy includes distributing
insecticide treated nets (ITNs) and K-O Tab insecticide treatment, doing early diagnosis and
treatment, and referring severely ill patients to the clinic. More information on the KMCP
malaria control strategy can be found in the KMCP section on page 18.
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