A Comparative Study of the Efficacy of Community Health Clubs in Rural Areas of Vietnam and Zimbabwe to Control Diarrhoeal Disease

The Community Health Club (CHC) Model in Makoni District, Zimbabwe operated 265 CHCs with 11,600 members from 1999 to 2001 at a cost of US$0.63 per beneficiary per annum. A decade later, 48 CHCs were started in three districts in Vietnam with 2,929 members at a cost of US$1.30. Hygiene behaviour change was compared using a similar survey of observable proxy indicators in both projects, before and after intervention. In Vietnam there was a mean of 36% change in 16 observable proxy indicators (p > 0.001) which compared positively with Makoni where there was a mean of 23% hygiene change in 10 indicators (p > 0.001). In Vietnam, 8 Health Centers reported a reduction of 117 cases of diarrhoeal diseases in CHC communes, compared to only 24 in non-CHC communes in one year; in 8 Health Centers in Makoni, Zimbabwe, a reduction of 1,219 reported cases over a 2-9 year period was reported, demonstrating the efficacy of CHC both in African and Asian context. We suggest that regular government data of reported cases at clinics may be a more reliable method than self-reported diarrhoea by carers in clustered-Randomised Control Trials, which have surprised practitioners by finding negligible impact of WASH interventions on diarrhoea in rural communities.