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Acute respiratory infection diagnostic aids (ARIDA) project

Project details

Countries
Ethiopia
Nepal

Donor
'La Caixa' Foundation, UNICEF

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Partner Organisations
UNICEF
Ministries of Health

Start Date
10/07/2016

End Date
18/12/2018

 

Project overview

Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death among children under five globally. Many pneumonia deaths result from late care seeking and inappropriate treatment due to misdiagnosis of symptoms.

Diagnosing pneumonia is difficult and remains largely presumptive. Diagnosis is done by counting the respiratory rate (RR) in children with a cough or difficulty breathing, to assess whether a RR is higher than what is considered normal. However, counting RRs is a difficult exercise, even for trained health workers. Misclassification of an observed rate is common, which often leads to incorrect diagnosis and consequently inappropriate treatment.

The ARIDA project aims to introduce automated RR counting aids for use by frontline health care workers in resource limited community settings and health facilities. These respiratory rate counting aids aim to offer improved accuracy, effectiveness and acceptability compared to current practices for counting and classifying RRs to detect fast breathing pneumonia.

The two countries conducting ARIDA field trials are Ethiopia and Nepal.

The project is funded by “la Caixa” and is a partnership between UNICEF Supply Division and Malaria Consortium.

Learn more about the ARIDA project in our introductory video below:

 

Visit UNICEF's ARIDA webpage here.

Photo one and two: Malaria Consortium Ethiopia 2018

Photo three and four: Malaria Consortium Nepal 2018

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