Uganda, 20 December 2011: Saul Morris, the Senior Programmes Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, expressed a strong interest during his most recent visit to Uganda in the evolution of Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) in the country. ICCM brings diagnosis and treatment of malaria, pneumonia and diarrhea where most needed: at village level. Community Health Workers are trained to diagnose these diseases and provided with free drugs for all children under five.

Morris sees ICCM programmes as an important step forward as they are rational, comprehensive and implemented at the most grass roots level of the poorest areas. Due to the size of the country he believes it may take some time to see these programmes rolled out comprehensively across Uganda so it is important to identify where ICCM should be prioritised next.

You can listen to Saul Morris' comments here 

Currently Malaria Consortium implements two exstensive ICCM programmes in Uganda, while the inSCALE project aims to identify best practices to increase motivation and retention of Community Health Workers delivering health care in their villages.

Visit the inSCALE website and for more information, email inscale@malariaconsortium.org