Journal article : Letter
Defining the burden of febrile illness in rural South and Southeast Asia: an open letter to announce the launch of the Rural Febrile Illness project
- Abstract:
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In rural areas of South and Southeast Asia malaria is declining but febrile illnesses still account for substantial morbidity and mortality. Village health workers (VHWs) are often the first point of contact with the formal health system, and for patients with febrile illnesses they can provide early diagnosis and treatment of malaria. However, for the majority of febrile patients, VHWs lack the training, support and resources to provide further care. Consequently, treatable bacterial illnesses are missed, antibiotics are overused and poorly targeted, and patient attendance wanes along with declining malaria.
This Open Letter announces the start of a new initiative, the Rural Febrile Illness (RFI) project, the first in a series of projects to be implemented as part of the South and Southeast Asian Community-based Trials Network (SEACTN) research programme. This multi-country, multi-site project will run in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Myanmar. It will define the epidemiological baseline of febrile illness in nine remote and underserved areas of Asia where malaria endemicity is declining and access to health services is limited.
The RFI project aims to determine the incidence, causes and outcomes of febrile illness; understand the opportunities, barriers and appetite for adjustment of the role of VHWs to include management of non-malarial febrile illnesses; and establish a network of community healthcare providers and facilities capable of implementing interventions designed to triage, diagnose and treat patients presenting with febrile illnesses within these communities in the future.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.9MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16393.2
Authors
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Journal:
- Wellcome Open Research More from this journal
- Volume:
- 6
- Pages:
- 64-64
- Article number:
- 64
- Publication date:
- 2021-03-26
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-04-23
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2398-502X
- ISSN:
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2398-502X
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Subtype:
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Letter
- Pubs id:
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1169524
- UUID:
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uuid_1539e8d1-428a-4e25-9bd4-f30ea29b5688
- Local pid:
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pubs:1169524
- Deposit date:
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2021-04-27
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Chandna et al
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 2022 Chandna A et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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