Improving the Performance of Community Health Workers

Treating Children With Diarrhoea, Pneumonia and Malaria in Africa

LONDON, January 13 - Malaria Consortium has received a US$10 million grant from the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to demonstrate how government-led integrated
community case management (iCCM) programmes can be scaled-up, leading to a
sustained increase in the proportion of children with diarrhoea and other
common diseases receiving appropriate treatment.

"Malaria Consortium is excited to have secured this important
grant," said Dr James Tibenderana, Director Case Management for Malaria
Consortium. "We estimate that each year diarrhoea causes about 30,000 and
36,000 deaths in children aged under five years old in Mozambique and Uganda
respectively, where this project will be implemented. This grant will give us
the opportunity to prevent some of these deaths which is a responsibility we
take very seriously."

A crucial element in attaining this goal is to gain a better
understanding of community based agents' (CBAs) motivation and attrition, and
find workable solutions to their retention and performance. This is essential
if iCCM implementation is to be successful on a national scale.

Health systems in resource-poor countries are often unable to
scale up essential child health interventions, so many are strengthening
their human resource capacity by investing in CBAs to deliver lifesaving
treatment to children suffering from these common but deadly diseases. CBAs
are tasked with increasing timely and appropriate in the community treatment
using high-quality medicines.

While there are many advantages to using CBAs, evidence to
date has revealed that their effectiveness is severely hampered by limited
community involvement, shortages of medicines, shortfalls in training
materials and a lack of refresher training and supervision. The data
collected by CBAs is also underutilised. These factors all contribute to low
activity levels and lack of motivation of CBAs.

Malaria Consortium, as the lead agency, will build on
established operations and excellent relations with the Ministries of Health,
as well as other key national and international partners. It will manage a
partnership combining expertise in research, communications and information
technology, including the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine,
University College London Centre for International Health and Development,
Straight Talk Foundation, N'Weti and Software Factory.

This five-year project will complement the work recently
started by Malaria Consortium through a Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA) funded project in four countries, including Uganda and
Mozambique. While the CIDA project will carefully measure the impact of
interventions, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded programme will add
implementation research and activities to promote uptake of iCCM to 50%
coverage in both countries.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact
Lara Brehmer on +44(0)20-7549-0258 or l.brehmer@malariaconsortium.org.

www.malariaconsortium.org

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Lara Brehmer on +44(0)20-7549-0258 or l.brehmer at malariaconsortium.org.