Pneumonia

Malaria Consortium has been at the forefront of pneumonia case management implementation research for 10 years, leading randomised controlled trials with thousands of community health workers and researching the use of technology and innovations in social and behaviour change communication.

In practice: Chad has one of the world’s highest under-five mortality rates, with pneumonia accounting for almost a quarter of these deaths. Drawing on our experience in conducting large-scale studies, Malaria Consortium is developing and operationalising a best-practice national childhood pneumonia strategy to improve pneumonia case management in the country.

The key challenge for pneumonia at community and primary health care levels is recognising the severity of pneumonia disease and ensuring rapid referral.

In practice: We studied and developed respiratory rate (RR) counting aids, further strengthened by our experience in supporting integrated community case management, enabling community assessment and treatment for uncomplicated cases.

We support governments to integrate pneumonia and other newborn and childhood illnesses into national strategies to improve child survival rates.

In practice: With the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, we are developing an action plan for the integrated management of newborn and childhood illnesses – focusing on pneumonia and diarrhoea – to support the newborn and child survival strategy and child health roadmap.