The submissions for the IFIC-Covidien 2009 Grant Competition: Making Safe Childbirth a Reality have been judged.
The winning proposal was:
To integrate Infection Prevention Services and Trainings into the Primary Health Care Program of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
To assist Trained Birth Attendants (TBAs) to be able to identify risk factors for neonatal infections in all 36 Primary Health Centres (PHCs).
To assist TBAs to identify basic infections in methods applicable in PHCs.
To assist TBAs to apply infection prevention methods in their routine care.
To reduce neonatal morbidity and mortality by at least 35%.
Two reasons accounted for failure of most of the proposals to be selected:
the methods section did not clearly specify how the study would be conducted, and
the proposal failed to incorporate the required elements.
The competition will be offered again next year and we encourage all infection control professionals in developing countries to consider submitting a proposal in 2010. The request for proposals will be the same next year:
“The Safe Childbirth Interest Group invites proposals for projects to reduce neonatal infections in hospital and outpatient settings. A successful proposal will include a plan to bring infection control best practices to a low-resource setting using a community-hospital partnership and prove that these practices work.”
