Table 3 New Year 2 challenges for Matabeleland South province

Village health worker (VHW) recruitment and retention

Lowered qualification requirements for VHW recruitment and provided VHWs with training and support to retain them

Beitbridge: 3% (87% to 90%)

Gwanda: 5% (83% to 88%)

Lack of inter-provincial collaboration

Use available funding from the Elimination 8’s Global Fund grant to conduct a minimum of two peer to peer province and district learning visits. The meetings will enable harmonization of surveillance and response activities between provinces and create cross-border and inter-provincial linkages

Target achieved through initiation of inter-provincial (Matabeleland South-Masvingo) and cross border meetings (Zimbabwe- Botswana) and exchange visits)

Low IRS coverage in Beitbridge district

Conducted operational research and analysed results

Planned to implement recommendations^a in the 2018/19 IRS campaign

Failure to conduct entomological activities

Engage the national entomologist, conduct training on larval source management (LSM) to build the capacity of the EHTs

Beitbridge achieved target of 2 entomological activities (malaria vector bionomics investigation, bioassays for testing insecticide susceptibility and training of EHTs on LSM). Gwanda had not yet initiated entomological activities

Slow uptake of Public Finance Management System (PFMS) funds

Provided on the job training and telephone consultations

Efforts to improve use of the finance system despite internet connectivity challenges resulted in improvement in fund utilization

Failure to update slide results of RDT + cases in case-based surveillance records

Developed tool to track slides received from health facilities which will allow the microscopy center to update results on case-based surveillance and relay results back to health facility

Feedback loop between lab and health facilities will be closed with the introduction and training on this tool at health facilities