Results
death, MPE
A total of 2304 SAC were approached for enrollment in the study. Of these, 2156 (93.6%) participants were consented and enrolled in the study. For evaluation of the intervention effectiveness, data from a total of 2138 (92.8% response rate) were analyzed and 118 were lost from the follow-up. Most common reasons for not enrolled in the study or lost from the follow-up were the mothers or caregivers being not available in repeated visits (two times), out-migration during the follow-up, refusal to participate due to underlying morbidity and death (Fig. 
Flow diagram of clusters and participants in the MPE trial in Southern Ethiopia, 2019–2020The mean number of SAC involved per cluster in the analysis, was 67.1 in the control arm and 66.6 in the intervention group. The background characteristics of SAC and their household sociodemographic and economic characteristics in both the intervention and control arms were depicted in Table 
Baseline and sociodemographic characteristics of study participants in control and MPE intervention group of in Southern Ethiopia, 2019–2020