Potential challenges of implementing the Community Health Extension Worker programme in Uganda.

### Summary boxUganda faces a significant shortage of trained healthcare professionals, especially in the public sector and rural areas.1 As a result, the Ministry of Health (MoH) have supported delivery of the Village Health Team (VHT) model since 2001.2 VHTs are lay people, working in a voluntary capacity, acting as a link between the formal health sector and their communities.3 They are given basic training on major health issues, including childhood diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia, and play a role in disease surveillance through activities such as data collection and reporting.3 Although the exact selection process for those wishing to become a VHT member varies depending on location, individuals commonly undergo selection starting in their own communities. After a period of sensitisation and consensus building among local stakeholders, a popular vote is held. To be selected as a VHT member, an individual must meet several criteria. He or she must be ‘above 18 years of age, a village resident, able to read and write in the local language, a good community mobiliser and communicator, a dependable and trustworthy person, …