Champs Launches to Get to the Root of Child Deaths in Western Kenya

Children from Magadi Primary School in Kisumu, Kenya live in the surveillance area covered by CHAMPS. Photo: Justin Williams

On May 5, 2017, the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Robert F. Godec, CDC Kenya and partner organizations stood on the grounds of Magadi Primary School to launch the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) project in Kisumu and Siaya counties in western Kenya. CHAMPS is a collaboration between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Emory University, the Henry Jackson Foundation, KEMRI and CDC. CHAMPS aims to increase understanding of how, where, and why children are getting sick and dying by determining a cause of death, through minimally invasive tissue sampling, review of medical records and social factors, for each child under five years who dies within the surveillance communities. Through an emphasis on rapid “data to action” these results will enable scientists and public health leaders in Kenya and around the world to take practical, meaningful steps to reduce child mortality. CHAMPS is a 20 year, long-term program that will ultimately take place in as many as 20 sites with high childhood mortality rates (>50 deaths in children under five years of age per 1,000 live births) throughout South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The program began in six sites including Kenya; Bangladesh; Ethiopia; Mali; Mozambique; and South Africa. During the launch, Ambassador Godec applauded the community health volunteers who are the eyes and ears on the ground and the ones who meet face-to-face with the families who have lost young children, observing, “You are heroes in our communities.”