I'm looking at two options for our child health program. We have found a source of micronutrient powders but our community health workers are resisting the distribution, based on past experience, and are asking for chewable multiple micronutrient tablets instead.
I've been looking for the reasons why MNP are preferred over the chewable tablets and can't find it clearly stated in any of my resources. Can anyone give me a quick summary of why they are better or point me in the right direction?
Sorry for the delay in responding to this. I have searched the literature, as I'm sure you have also, and cannot find any comparison of these two options.
The main question that your post raised is what is the reason for the resistance from health workers and which MNP product was used previously? There were past issues with the quality of some products, one in particular, which may have caused an unwillingness for families to use them.
The lack of literature on the use of chewable or crushable tablets is probably because they are not widely used. There are also no WHO guidelines for them, product types may vary widely and there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't present similar problems to those found with MNPs previously. Given the research and experience with the use of MNPs (and existence of WHO guidelines) I'd suggest that these are a better option, however you will need to understand and address the resistance to their use first for it to be successful. Have you contacted the Home Fortification Technical Advisory Group about this? That may be helpful to you http://www.hftag.org/
Good luck moving forward with your programme.
Answered:
7 years ago