Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI)

Since the 1970s, the estimated annual number of deaths among children less than 5years old has decreased by almost a third. This reduction, however, has been very un-even. And in some countries rates of childhood mortality are increasing. In 1998, more than 50 countries still had childhood mortality rates of over 100 per 1000 live births. Altogether more than 10 million children die each year in developing countries before they reach their fifth birthday. Seven in ten of these deaths are due to acute respiratory infections (mostly pneumonia), diarrhoea, measles, malaria, or malnutrition and often to a combination of these conditions. Projections based on the 1996 analysis, indicate that these conditions will continue to be major contributors to child deaths in the year 2020 unless significantly greater efforts are made to control them. This therefore calls for high impact interventions to ensure child survival.

Previously child survival interventions were usually implemented as separate disease-specific programs for common causes of child mortality. Though interventions and others such as exclusive breastfeeding, vaccination and Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) are effective, children attending primary care settings are often known to have multiple and overlapping morbidities which need an integrated approach to treat them adequately (Bryce, 2005b).

In most developing countries e.g. Kenya where CINCO focuses its interventions, most conventional interventions on IMCI are more hospital based as opposed to community. As a result IMCI diseases continue to thrive and affect the children at the community level.

CINCO realizes the important role played by the community in controlling IMCI diseases and thus focuses on the following high impact interventions areas at the community level.

1. Counseling parents/caregivers at health facilities about care-seeking behavior, danger signs, and home management of childhood illness, compliance to treatment advice, child feeding and utilization of preventive services
2. Community-Based Health Volunteers providing information during in-home counseling sessions to parents/caregivers and family members of under-five children about nutrition and health practices and proper referral practices
3. Community mobilization involves active and meaningful participation of the communities to establish a partnership between health workers and households with support from their communities. This is achieved by involving women groups, community leaders, religious institutions etc, through meetings arranged by CINCO in collaboration with partners including the ministries / government departments responsible for health.

In contributing towards the achievements of Kenya’s Vision 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we seek support to carry out the above interventions to benefit our target communities. CINCO is a grassroot NGO focusing on community driven projects to solve their health problems and uplift their social and economic status.

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