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Background: School closures in response to the COVID-19 impacted children's education, protection, and wellbeing. After understanding these impacts and that children were not super spreaders, countries including Ethiopia decided to reopen schools with specified preconditions. But when deciding to reopen schools, the benefits and risks across education, public health and socio-economic factors have to be evaluated. However, there was information gap on status of schools as per preconditions. Hence, this study was designed to investigate status of schools in Southern Ethiopia. Methods: School based cross-sectional study was conducted in October 2020 in Southern Ethiopia. Sample of 430 schools were included. National school reopening guideline was used to develop checklist for assessment. Data was collected by public health experts at regional emergency operation center. Descriptive analysis was performed to summarize data. Results: A total of 430 schools were included. More than two thirds, 298 (69.3%), of schools were from rural areas while 132 (30.7%) were from urban settings. The general infection prevention and water, sanitation and hygiene (IPC-WASH) status of schools were poor and COVID-19 specific preparations were inadequate to meet national preconditions to reopen schools during the pandemic. Total score from 24 items observed ranged from 3 to 22 points with mean score of 11.75 (SD±4.02). No school scored 100% and only 41 (9.5%) scored above 75% while 216 (50.2%%) scored below half point that is 12 items. Conclusion: Both the basic and COVID-19 specific IPC-WASH status of schools were inadequate to implement national school reopening preconditions and general standards. Some of strategies planned to accommodate teaching process and preconditions maximized inequalities in education. Although COVID-19 impact lessened due to vaccination and other factors, it is rational to consider fulfilling water and basic sanitation facilities to schools to prevent communicable diseases of public health importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, unmet need for postpartum family planning is high. However, immunization services are among the most widely utilized health services. Establishing systematic screening, counseling, and referral systems from different contact points, particularly from EPI units may improve postpartum family planning uptake. Hence, this study aimed to assess the effect of counseling for family planning at EPI units on contraceptive uptake during the extended post-partum period. A before-and-after type of quasi-experimental study was conducted in 8 purposively selected primary health care units in Sidama region, Ethiopia. All mothers visiting the selected health facilities for infant immunization services from February 06 to August 30, 2020, were screened, counseled, and referred for family planning. A structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 1421 randomly selected mothers (717 for pre-intervention and 704 post-intervention phases). EpiData version 3.1 and SPSS version 22 were used for data entry and analysis. The effect of the intervention was assessed using multivariable logistic regression analysis adjusting for the effects of potential confounders. P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The contraceptive utilization rate before intervention was 72.7% with 95% CI (69.5, 75.9). It was 91.9%, 95% CI (89.8%, 93.9%) after the intervention. Utilization of contraceptive pills increased from 4.3% to 6.9%, injectables from 52.4% to 57.5%, implants from 12.8% to 22.9%, and IUCD from 3.2% to 5.0% after the intervention. After adjusting for the effect of possible confounding variables, screening, counseling, and referring mothers for family planning at infant immunization units significantly increases the contraceptive utilization rate among mothers presented for infant immunization services(AOR = 5.83, 95% CI: 4.02, 8.46). Screening, counseling, and referring mothers for family planning services at infant immunization units significantly increases postpartum contraceptive uptake. Integrating family planning messages with infant immunization services is recommended. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04767139 (Registered on 23/02/2021)., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Muluneh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)