Integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI)

Every year, nearly 11 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday. In response to this challenge,WHO and UNICEF in the early 1990s developed Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), a strategy designed to reduce child mortality and morbidity in developing countries.The approach focuses on the major causes of deaths in children through improving case management skills of health workers, strengthening the health system, and addressing family and community practices. However, the original IMCI modules did not include care of the sick newborn during the first week of life, the time when one in three child deaths occur, and it did not emphasise home-based newborn care.