College of Medicine through the Malaria Alert Centre and Save the Children Malawi has announced the pilot study on new way of management of fever at community level labeling it as one way of reducing child mortality due to malaria.

The new method, the Integration of Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (IMRDT) will be piloted in Mchinji for a period of one year from July, 2013 to July, 2014 to a tune of USD119, 000 from the Barr Foundation through Save the Children.

In the new method Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) will be trained to diagnose and manage the pre-referral treatment called Rectal Artesunate (RA) at the community level.

RA is said to be effective as it reduces the density of parasites in the body by half in four hours which is not the same as the old malaria drugs like quinine and LA.

College of Medicine Malaria Alert Centre Research Coordinator, Themba Phiri, said government is trying to implement the recommendations by World Health Organization (WHO) on ministering the new drug which is said to be effective and will help reduce child mortality caused due to Malaria.

He said the centre would like to assess the feasibility of introducing mRDT in the management of fever at community level and see how people will receive the new method which allows the inception of the drug through the rectal canal.

"We would like to see the community acceptability of the new method, we will tell them the goodness of it and we are also expecting HSAs to accept it and be well equipped in ministering the drugs," said Phiri.

According to Phiri the method has proved very effective in other regions of the continent like Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.

"It was successful in some countries that is why WHO recommended it, so why not try it here. We will try our best to let the communities aware of the method and let them decided on the way forward. If the programme works in Mchinji, we will spread it throughout the country," he said.

The study is targeting children from the ages of 2 months to 5 years in the district who will be selected from sample village clinics spread out in the district.