ABSTRACT
Zimbabwe. What we know: The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting movement restrictions have challenged the collection of routine nutrition monitoring data, limiting the ability of countries to identify changes in the nutrition situation. What this article adds: The RapidPro data management system enabled the continuation of routine nutrition data collection in Zimbabwe in the COVID-19 context. A number of indicators were selected for weekly (instead of monthly) reporting in nutritionally vulnerable, drought prone districts. Village health workers (VHWs) and health facility staff were prompted weekly to submit data via the mobile phone short messaging service (SMS) which were automatically collated via RapidPro software and analysed regularly at national level. A national level monitoring and evaluation officer responsible for quality control followed up with districts and health staff if data discrepancies were noted. To date, over 9,146 VHWs provide reports using the RapidPro system;on average, 70% of responses were complete and correct. This system enabled near real-time screening data (Family mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC)) and information on ready-to-use therapeutic feeding (RUTF) supplies that were used by the Nutrition Cluster for decision making and response planning to support continued wasting treatment services. Successful scale-up of RapidPro was as a result of strong government leadership, the inclusion of RapidPro activities in Ministry of Health activity plans and integration with national nutrition reporting systems. In due course, this data will be automated to feed directly into the Demographic Health and Information Survey verion two (DHIS2) data management platform.