Under the Rapid Access Expansion (RAcE) programme, launched in Malawi in 2013, the Ministry of Health has been working with WHO to train community health workers to treat common childhood diseases.

The approach, known as the integrated community case management (iCCM) of childhood illnesses, focuses on treating diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia, which together accounted for 45% of deaths among children younger than 5 years of age in the country in 2012.

“The incidence of preventable deaths among children underscored the need for the program years ago,” said Dr Storn Kabuluzi, Director of Preventive Health Services at the Malawi Ministry of Health. “So we adopted an aggressive strategy for child survival in 2008,” he said, noting that health workers were trained to treat fevers and other illnesses among children. “Thanks to these efforts, Malawi is now on track to achieve MDG 4.”

Dr Kabuluzi was referring to the Millennium Development Goal that calls for reducing the mortality rate for children younger than 5 by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015. Malawi has already exceeded that goal. In 1990, the mortality rate for children under 5 was 245 per 1000 live births. By 2013, it was 68 per 1000, a reduction of 72%.