Table 2 Summary of quotes highlighting disruption of facility and community health and nutrition services

Disruption of MCH services

“Let’s say in the facility we normally provided health education to mothers, when COVID-19 was announced the number reduced [coming to the facility] almost to zero for the first few days. Most of the children were not coming for growth monitoring. They (mothers) feared, if the mother has fever, they will be admitted and taken for quarantine, so they feared a lot, so attendance was poor.KII, nutritionist, Gatundu, BFCI non-implementing rural site

Reduced clinic attendance due to fear of contracting the virus

“When COVID came, most of the parents could not visit the facility. If for example, you are talking about the child welfare clinic, the parents, could not continue attending because people believe that now the facility or the hospitals were institutions carrying the COVID…they could not continue with their immunization monitoring growth and the rest. Even those on some kinds of therapies could not continue.”KII, community health representative, Lari, BFCI implementing rural site

“Some of the clients feared that if they come to the dispensary, they may contract COVID-19, so some of them took time to come to the dispensary for even the growth monitoring.”KII, health worker, Koibatek, BFCI implementing rural site

Disruption of community health services

“There is what we call “Malezi Bora”. We do it in May and September. Basically we do it in schools and homes. Around May when cases were high, we were not able to reach as many children as we would like to because many people feared interactions with people who they don’t know.”KII, community health assistant, BFCI non-implementing rural site