WASH response to COVID-19 for the most vulnerable malnourished children and their community at both nutrition center and household levels. The proposed action’s objective is to strengthen awareness and implementation of optimal COVID19-specific and general hygiene practices in local communities and health facilities at-risk or affected by COVID19 in order to contain on-going COVID19 outbreak in the targeted areas of Ghor Province.

In the already fragile country of Afghanistan with a “current coverage of WASH services including water supply infrastructure, sanitation facilities and hygiene promotion supplies already unable to adequately support basic WASH needs from conflict and natural disasters” according to the COVID19 Multi-sector Humanitarian Country Plan, the additional burden of a country-wide disease outbreak could have disastrous consequences. The first confirmed case in Afghanistan has been reported by MoPH on February 24th, in Herat province. Since then, additional provinces have been infected, with now 20 out of 34 provinces experiencing confirmed cases with a total of 484 confirmed cases according to OCHA’s last Daily Brief (9th of April). Ghor province is already particularly affected by cycles of heavy armed conflict and natural disaster like drought, heavy rain cause to flash flood and have very high needs in terms of WASH. The emergence of the COVID19 outbreak could be disastrous considering also the fragile health system in this Province.

In order to respond to the high needs identified, Action Against Hunger (AAH) will launch a WASH emergency response to the COVID19 outbreak to increase the implementation of improved hygiene practices, notably hand-washing, and, so, prevent further spread of COVID19 outbreak, both at community level and health facilities level and with a specific focus on malnourished boys and girls. This emergency response will target 58,089 persons (15,371 men, 15,998 women, 13,091 boys and 13,629 girls) and will focus on the four following districts: Ferozkoh, Shahrak, Tulak and Taiwara, of Ghor Province, that have been identified by IOM as being among the 25 districts to be prioritized for COVID19 response since they are at higher risk of being affected by COVID19 outbreak.

More specifically, the assistance will target the two following levels:
-	At community level, with a strong focus on strengthening the good hygiene knowledge and practices among local population, in particular women and girls due to the disproportionate impact of the outbreak, in order to reduce the potential contamination vectors, notably through extensive handwashing practices. But, since lack of access to hygiene items is one of the main bottleneck preventing handwashing (with lack of access to water), a focus is also needed on facilitating the access to hygiene items for the most vulnerable part of the population and/or the part of the population at higher risk of being contaminated and/or developing complicated symptoms (SAM/MAM children, women attending ANC/PNC, elderly individuals, individuals with chronic diseases, IDPs). In addition, since COVID19 is a new kind of disease differing from the disease the local communities are aware of and have been sensitized on (COVID19 is not a water-borne disease), it is also necessary to raise the awareness of local population and key community leaders regarding COVID19’s specificities.
-	At health facility level, with a strong focus on strengthening the hygiene/IPC measures and waste management systems enforced in each health facility. Doing so will allow to avoid health facilities to be become a COVID19 contamination cluster but will also allow the health facilities to continue providing lifesaving health amp nutrition services which will be even more crucial in the context of COVID19.
Based on the designed program, AAH will provide support to 23 Health facilities including Provincial Hospital and Sar-miyash Hospital. Throughout the project, the required precautionary measures from MoPH and WHO guidelines, but also COVID19 Response plan, will be taken for group activities as well as for AAH’s staff.