Pneumonia Communication Kits

"Pneumonia kills more children than any other disease."

According to this presentation, at the booth of Diarrhoea and Pneumonia Working Group, for the International SBCC Summit 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February 8-10, "[m]ore is needed to improve careseeking and correct diagnosis among health providers and care givers" for this disease that is, as stated here, the leading killer of children under 5 and is preventable trough early recognition and prompt diagnosis and care.

For frontline healthworkers and caregivers, kits are available through the Diarrhea & Pneumonia Working Group, co-chaired by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). The kits are described here as bringing "highly visual" information to caregivers so that they can recognise the signs of pneumonia and feel compelled to seek prompt care. They also are intended for frontline healthworkers to offer them the know how to assess a child for fast breathing and chest in-drawing and know what steps to take.

The kits include the pneumonia recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO)/UNICEF Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) guidelines. They are free and open source; and the kits can be adapted to local context (language, images, etc.) "The materials have been researched and/or field tested via 40 focus group discussions and 195 individual interviews across nine different countries and have been reviewed by an expert panel..." and are available in 3 regional variations: African, African Muslim, and South Asian with a focus on the 10 high-burden countries: Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, India,    Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.   

They are:
1. Caregiver education kit - poster, illustrated story, and flier of key messages.
2. Frontline healthworker kit - training presentation on diagnosis and treatment, 2 videos (fast breathing and chest in-drawing); post training take-away sheet, pre/post training test, post training text messages, FAQ document.

The kits are available for download here.