Fast Facts

An IMCI coordinator in Bolivia speaks to local children in La Paz.

WHO
The American Red Cross is implementing a $10 million, five-year Community IMCI project in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the UN Foundation (UNF), Ministries of Health and others aimed at saving 25,000 lives of children under age five each year by using the IMCI strategy.

WHAT
The project focuses on capacity building in communities and health facilities to develop local conditions required for the delivery of a comprehensive community and household IMCI package. Working through technical committees, the project has served to mainstream policies and implementation guidelines within existing national IMCI programs. Moreover, it establishes a durable IMCI platform on which to scale up programming by forging local, national and international partnerships that include: PAHO, UNF, Ministries of Health, Red Cross Movement partners and NGOs. In so doing, this community IMCI is building a sustainable foundation within the health sector, strengthening lasting links across civil society.

WHERE
The American Red Cross is bringing lifesaving IMCI skills to 10 countries throughout the Americas including Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia. In other regions of the world, the American Red Cross is bringing IMCI training and methodology to the countries of Cambodia, Ghana, Armenia, and Nagorno-Karabagh in the Caucuses.

WHY
Worldwide, more than 11 million children die each year from five childhood killers-diarrhea, acute respiratory infection, measles, malaria or malnutrition before their fifth birthday. Although these five conditions account for 70 percent of young deaths, they are easily preventable if recognized and treated early. Alarmingly, this death rate is equivalent to 24,000 deaths each day of the year. By using the IMCI approach to child health care and increasing the ability of caregivers to prevent, diagnose and treat children with these five conditions, the Red Cross Movement is helping to save countless lives and relieve suffering every day. Also, the American Red Cross is helping its partner societies in the Americas to build teams of trained health promoters who work with the ministries of health to extend the reach of basic health services.

HOW
Bringing compassionate assistance to people in need, qualified Red Cross community health educators are turning the tide and helping communities recognize and accurately diagnose potentially dangerous conditions in their children. Children's lives can be saved if medications are available and if caregivers understand the danger signs of the most common childhood causes of illness.

The American Red Cross is training local Red Cross staff and volunteers to:

• Teach primary health care workers to evaluate the health status of children brought to clinics and to recognize signs of and to treat the five most common childhood killers. Local volunteers also encourage health care workers to talk with parents about preventing disease in the home.

• Teach mothers and caregivers how to detect potentially fatal danger signs such as coughing or breathing difficulty, diarrhea, fever and earaches in young children. Volunteers also teach mothers to time the rate of a child's breaths (rapid breathing may indicate pneumonia), administer care and recognize when to take the child to a hospital for more extensive treatment.

• Train other local Red Cross volunteers to visit every family with children under the age of five. The volunteers look for signs of illness and determine if a child needs immediate medical attention or home health care. Volunteers also make referrals to local clinics for treatment.

• Teach new mothers the importance of breastfeeding, which builds the immune system and reduces diarrhea, respiratory infections and malnutrition in newborns.

• Outfit communities with the rehydration medicines needed for life-threatening diarrhea; recognize life-threatening pneumonias.

• Mobilize community vaccination campaigns against measles.

• Create monthly health checkup programs for children under the age of five.

• Promote sound nutritional practices and conduct nutrition surveys and gather height and weight information that will create a health history for children and help monitor dehydration, growth and development.