Role of the community
Teaching mothers to provide home treatment of malaria in Tigray, Ethiopia: a randomised trial
Trained mothers can reduce child mortality from malaria
Authors:
G. Kidane; R. Morrow
Publisher:
The Lancet, 2000
This article from The Lancet reports on a study in Tigray, Ethiopia which examined the effect on under-5 mortality, of teaching mothers to provide anti-malarials to their sick children at home. This was compared with the current community health worker approach. Although the community-based malaria control programme had been well received, previous assessments found that rural women, the young and most vulnerable children were rarely being seen or treated. Consequently, a new approach was developed that was based on selecting and training mother coordinators to teach all mothers to recognise possible malaria and give chloroquine to their young children.
Findings reveal that under-5 mortality was reduced by 40 per cent. The authors argue that the much lower mortality rates in the intervention groups show that although malaria is a major killer, mothers are able to take care of their sick children when taught and supplied with appropriate guidance and drugs for home medication. They authors conclude that with the reinvigorated efforts to rollback malaria, it is vital that more attention be given to what family and community-based efforts can achieve when properly designed and applied in an appropriate setting.
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