Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM)

Programmatic experience shows that an integrated strategy can be effective in achieving high treatment coverage and delivering high-quality care to sick children in the community.1

Photo of a man administering healthcare to a child on a woman's lap.
Photo credit: Fernando Fidelis/MCSP, Muecate District, Nampula Province, Mozambique
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Want to learn how to institutionalize iCCM within your national health system? Check out our iCCM Institutionalization Toolkit including key resources, guidance from country experiences, research and tools.

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What is iCCM?

Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) is a strategy to train, support, and supply community health workers (CHW) to provide diagnostic, treatment, and referral services for three common, treatable, and curable childhood illnesses: malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea. Young children are especially vulnerable to these illnesses, and iCCM offers caregivers in these hard-to-reach communities a way to help children under five get the treatment they need before it is too late.2 iCCM has become one of the key global health strategies recognized by stakeholders across the health system. When well-designed and implemented, an iCCM program expands access to life saving interventions for vulnerable populations living in settings with poor access to health care.


Why iCCM?

Over the last decade or so, key global stakeholders working with country level partners and Ministries of Health in high burden countries have been successful in bringing in policy change, with the majority of the countries approving iCCM as a key strategy to deliver life-saving interventions to remote and inaccessible communities. However, implementation at scale shows mixed results, with very few countries able to cover a significant proportion of the iCCM target areas. Also, most countries still rely on donor support to fund their iCCM programs, which has resulted in limited implementation coverage. Many countries that have scaled up iCCM also struggle to maintain an acceptable level of service integration and quality. There is a huge unfinished agenda that includes, most importantly, weak global guidance and national governance, and weak integration and implementation quality. Addressing these issues will require continued global level coordination and support to help countries achieve their goal of quality implementation of iCCM at scale. To be effective, iCCM must be ministry-led, adequately resourced and managed, with long-term commitments of support from partners. National ownership of the iCCM strategy requires that countries plan and adequately budget for iCCM implementation, including domestic funding sources for health.

The set of resources presented below was collated by the Child Health Task Force subgroup for Institutionalizing iCCM and the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) Impact Malaria. They are meant to guide national and subnational policymakers in their journey towards institutionalization as well as provide information for implementers engaged in iCCM programs at the country and community levels.

Icon of spotlights Featured Resource

Advocacy Brief: Achieving Impact at Scale - New Funding Opportunities for Integrated Community Case Management of Childhood Illnesses (iCCM) through the Global Fund

Costing and Financing

This brief, developed by the iCCM Task Team, includes key messages advocating for the inclusion of iCCM, non-malaria commodities, and other systems strengthening for child health in country Global Fund proposals. The resource is available in English, Portuguese, and French.

Computer icon Resources

These resources are grouped using the components in the iCCM benchmark framework developed by USAID.³ For more iCCM resources, see this list in the Child Health Task Force Resource Library.

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Supply Chain Management

Presentation by Aline Simen-Kapeu on a regional analysis of the challenges to supply chain systems strengthening, during Session Seven of the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Human Resources Supply Chain Management

Presentation "Are Commodities Reaching Community Health Workers? A Review of Evidence" by Karen Kallander during Session Seven of the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Costing and Financing Service Delivery and Referral

Presentation on PMI support for iCCM at the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Costing and Financing

Presentation by the Global Financing Facility from the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Costing and Financing

Presentation by Pomie Mungala on the DRC experience of financing iCCM, from the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Costing and Financing

One page resource explaining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Malaria Eradication Strategy and iCCM Financing, provided to participants at the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Coordination and Policy Setting Costing and Financing Human Resources Supply Chain Management Service Delivery and Referral Communication and Social Mobilization Supervision and Performance Quality Assurance M&E and Health Information Systems

Presentation introducing the WHO/Unicef Planning Handbook: Caring for Newborns and Children in the Community, from the iCCM Technical Consultation held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Coordination and Policy Setting Human Resources Service Delivery and Referral Supervision and Performance Quality Assurance

Presentation by Catherine Kane introducing the WHO Guideline on Health Policy and Support System to Optimize Community Health Worker Programs, from the iCCM Technical Consultation held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Service Delivery and Referral Communication and Social Mobilization

Presentation by Asiya Odugleh-Kolev on the WHO Community Engagement Framework and experiences from Rwanda, during Session Four of the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.

Human Resources Service Delivery and Referral Communication and Social Mobilization

Presentation on Uganda's experience scaling up iCCM in community health systems,  during Session Three of the iCCM Technical Consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 22-26, 2019.