ARI in children: a case management intervention in Abbottabad

ABSTRACT

A community-based program of acute lower respiratory infection [ALRI] case management was conducted in a rural district of northern Pakistan. The impact on infant and child mortality of this program was evaluated. During 1985-1986, ALRI-speciflc mortality among children <5 years old living in 31 intervention villages was 6.3 deaths per 1000 children per year compared with 14.4 in seven control villages [p=0.0001]. Within one year after interventions were extended to the control villages in 1987, ALRI-specific mortality in these villages dropped by 55% to 6.5 per 1000 children per year [p=0.06]. Total child mortality in 1985-86 was 29.0 per 1000 children per year in the intervention villages and 39.4 in the control villages, a difference of 28% [p=0.01]. With interventions in 1987, total child mortality in the control villages declined by 29% to 27.8 per 1000 children per year[p=0.09]