AMREF Flying Doctors

Project Brief:

In Uganda, malaria causes 47% of the deaths among children under the age of five and 30% of the deaths among pregnant women. The Nakasongola district does not have enough knowledge and resources to prevent and treat malaria. There are not enough trained health workers, and the methods, for example, used by the staff in the local clinics and the traditional midwives are not in synch.

AMREF Flying Doctors is supporting a four-year program in this region. This first phase has been successfully completed. Information about malaria prevention was given in and around schools. The activities planned in the second phase, which started in July 2007, include training health workers. The programme also increases and enhances the collaboration between organizations, enabling AMREF to improve the health-care system that is needed to effectively prevent and treat malaria. This programme will reach 29,365 people in three years.

Goal
Reduce the number of malaria cases and deaths among vulnerable groups, such as children under the age of five, pregnant women and people with HIV.

Activities
- Education and information: train civil servants, teachers and members of school committees in the prevention, control and treatment of malaria.
- Set up organizations at different administrative levels to strengthen the health-care system.
- AMREF in Uganda coordinates the platform Malaria and Childhood Illnesses Secretariat (MACIS), where experience with and expertise in malaria and health care are shared.
- Community Drug Distributors (CDDs), volunteers who give training in the villages and distribute drugs, are given bicycles and pillboxes. AMREF also trains some 180 volunteers in the prevention, control and treatment of malaria.
- AMREF is also training some 180 traditional midwives.
- AMREF uses interactive tools such as theatre, dance and film to bring about behavioural change.

Project Report:

Results of the interim report need to be added.