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Article History

Received: 8 November 2022

Accepted: 9 March 2023

First Online: 21 March 2023

Declarations

:

: The study was approved by the KEMRI Scientific and Ethics Review Committee (approval number NON-KEMRI 644) as well as the Ethikkommission of the Charité Berlin (reference number EA2/100/16). During the community entry phase, a presentation was made to the county and sub-county health management teams and the department of education in both counties to obtain their approval. In each school a meeting was held with the school parent teachers’ association (PTA) or management board to obtain their permission to conduct the survey in their school. The head teacher and PTA chairperson signed the consent form on behalf of the parents and school. Each child gave verbal assent. Community health workers were hired and trained in each school to assist and be the link with the community emphasizing that participation was completely voluntary, and subjects had the opportunity to withdraw from the study at any point in the study. At the households, the head of household or an adult representative, had the study explained to them and gave signed consent before the study team entered the homestead. All data were collected on PIN protected electronic tablets, stored on password protected RedCap databases on the icipe servers. Data were analyzed after export to Excel spreadsheets without inclusion of personal identifiers. All pupils with tungiasis were referred for treatment to the community health workers or the local health facility using benzyl benzoate, chosen by the county health managers, and provided by the study. For those with secondary bacterial infection and other illnesses requiring treatment, a referral was made to the nearest health facility.

: Not applicable.

: All authors declare no competing interests.