Background
Malaria is an important cause of death especially in children and pregnant women living in subSaharan Africa. In many rural areas, children are unable to access effective malaria treatment because health services are either too far away or antimalarial drugs are too expensive. Homeor community-based programmes for managing malaria have been proposed as a key strategy to overcome these problems. In these programmes people living in rural settings, such as mothers, volunteers, or community health workers, are trained to recognise fever and provide antimalarial medicines at a low cost or for free.

Key findings
?  Home- or community-based strategies increase the number of people with fever that receive an effective antimalarial drug within 24 hours.
?  They reduce the number of deaths in areas where malaria is common and there is poor access to health services.
?  The use of rapid diagnostic tests instead of clinical diagnosis in home- or community based programmes for treating malaria reduces the overuse of antimalarials drugs.