title: The Impact of Integrated Community Case Management of Childhood Diseases Interventions to Prevent Malaria Fever in Children Less than Five Years Old in Bauchi State of Nigeria.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Malaria accounts for about 300,000 childhood deaths and 30% of under-five year old mortality in Nigeria annually. We assessed the impact of intervention strategies that integrated Patent Medicines Vendors into community case management of childhood-diseases, improved access to artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) and distributed bed nets to households. We explored the influence of household socioeconomic characteristics on the impact of the interventions on fever in the under-five year olds in Bauchi State Nigeria.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional case-controlled, interventional study, which sampled 3077 and 2737 under-5 year olds from 1,588 and 1601 households in pre- and post-intervention periods respectively, was conducted from 2013 to 2015. Difference-in-differences and logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the impact attributable to the interventions: integrated community case management of childhood illness which introduced trained public and private sector health providers and the possession of nets on the prevalence of fever.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Two-week prevalence of fever among under-fives declined from 56.6% at pre-intervention to 42.5% at post-intervention. Fever-prevention fraction attributable to nets was statistically significant (OR = 0.217, 95% CI: 0.08-0.33). Children in the intervention group had significantly fewer incidence of fever than children in the control group had (OR = 0.765, 95% CI: 0.67-0.87). Although being in the intervention group significantly provided 23.5% protection against fever (95% CI: 0.13-0.33), the post-intervention likelihood of fever was also significantly less than at pre-intervention (OR = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.50-0.65). The intervention protection fraction against fever was statistically significant at 43.4% (OR = 0.434, 95% CI: 0.36-0.50). Logistic regression showed that the odds of fever were lower in households with nets (OR = 0.72, 95% CI: 0.60-0.88), among children whose mothers had higher education, in the post-intervention period (OR = 0.39, 95% CI: 0.33-0.46) and in the intervention group (OR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.48-0.66). The odds of fever increased with higher socio-economic status of households (17.9%-19.5%). Difference-in-differences showed that the interventions significantly reduced occurrence of fever in the intervention group (OR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.36-2.14).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The interventions were effective in reducing the prevalence and the likelihood of childhood malaria fever. Taken to scale, these can significantly reduce the burden of malaria fever in the under-five year old children.
authors: John Snow Incorporated (JSI) Research and Training Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors: Dele
authors: D
authors: Abegunde
authors: John Snow Incorporated (JSI) Research and Training Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors: Nosa
authors: N
authors: Orobaton
authors: John Snow Incorporated (JSI) Research and Training Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors: Amos
authors: A
authors: Bassi
authors: John Snow Incorporated (JSI) Research and Training Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.|Futures Group, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America.
authors: Olugbenga
authors: O
authors: Oguntunde
authors: John Snow Incorporated (JSI) Research and Training Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors: Moyosola
authors: M
authors: Bamidele
authors: John Snow Incorporated (JSI) Research and Training Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors: Masduq
authors: M
authors: Abdulkrim
authors: John Snow Incorporated (JSI) Research and Training Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors: Ezenwa
authors: E
authors: Nwizugbe
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D019090:Case Management; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002662:Child Health Services; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008288:Malaria / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008297:Male; D057147:Mosquito Nets; D009549:Nigeria / Q000453:epidemiology; D016017:Odds Ratio; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors