Integrated community case management of childhood illness

This work is studying whether children under the age of five who have fever due to malaria, pneumonia and diarrhoea can be effectively managed by trained community health care workers. The questions being studied are whether an integrated diagnostic and treatment approach going beyond malaria is feasible, leads to a more rational use of drugs (antimalarials and antibiotics) and improves the outcome of the disease, ultimately reducing deaths. All patients are screened for the three diseases through rapid diagnostic tests for malaria, disease history and respiratory rate counting. Treatment is administered based on these test results – artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) for malaria, oral antibiotics for pneumonia, and oral rehydration therapy and zinc for diarrhoea. Countries include Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

• iCCM Task Force website
  A source for resources on the topic, examples of best practices and access to tools. It also provides a forum for answers to questions and discussions of challenges.