Adolescent schoolgirls in Kenya and other countries in east Africa have said that difficulties dealing with their own monthly periods is one of their biggest stressors. International and local agencies report that lack of access or an inability to pay for menstrual products, such as sanitary pads, mean that girls in many countries of Africa and Asia have to make do with makeshift and poor quality materials such as old rags, foam torn from their bed mattress, bits of paper from schoolbooks or from the newspaper, and sometimes even grass. These items irritate and do not prevent leaking which causes embarrassment, and prevent girls from concentrating on their schoolwork. It is said that schoolgirls in Kenya may lose as many as 500,000 schooldays a year because they are unable to cope with their monthly periods at school.

The KEMRI/CDC Research and Public Health Collaboration, in partnership with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, England, have received a grant that will be used to help investigate how to solve the problem schoolgirl’s face in managing their monthly periods. The study will take place in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, and the African Population and Health Research Center, who previously conducted a pilot study of Mooncups among schoolgirls in Nairobi.

In the next two years a study will be conducted in schools in Gem Division, Nyanza Province, within the study area of KEMRI/CDC.Girls aged 14 to 16 years of age who live in Gem, and attend a school that agrees to join the study, will be invited. to participate with consent also from their parent or guardian. Schools will be ‘randomly’ divided into three groups, one group will receive sanitary pads to the participating girls, one will receive Mooncups, and the third will be ‘usual practice’, with some educational materials provided.

Over one year, research nurses who will be attached to schools for the study, will teach the girls about managing their period with the menstrual product, and will regularly meet with the girls to check their health, and to make sure they have no problems when using the menstrual products. There will be school and community meetings to discuss the study, as well as some special discussion groups.

It will be important to see if the menstrual products available for use are acceptable for the girls, and their parents are happy for them to use them, and that they are able to use them correctly. The study will also be looking to see if water, sanitation, and hygiene in the schools and at home will have any effect on safe use of the menstrual products.