Baseline Demographics and Characteristics
10–14 min).After fever, pneumonia, diarrhea, rhinorrhea, abdominal pain, malaria, cough, respiratory syncytial virus, standard-practice
MALARIA, PNEUMONIA, RECRUITMENT
From September 2020 to September 2021, 1733 participants were screened and 1718 enrolled. Of these, 856 (653 aged from 6 to 59 mo, and 203 from 5 y to <18 y) were randomized in the intervention arm and 862 (649 and 213, respectively) in the standard-practice arm (control arm). Fifteen participants were not enrolled for the reasons outlined in Participant disposition.Since testing was performed by nurse assistants based on clinical presentation and nurses were responsible for clinical assessment and management of participants, the time required for testing was 15–20 minutes. The waiting time of the participants at the health centers was 20–30 minutes compared to 10–15 minutes in the routine arm. Nevertheless, for children under 5 years with suspicion of pneumonia based on the WHO definition in the intervention arm, the waiting time was similar to that in the routine arm (10–14 min).After fever (97.1%; 1668/1718), the most common reasons for the clinic consultation were sneezing and rhinorrhea (43.0%; 739/1718), cough (39.1%; 671/1718), abdominal pain (22.8%; 392/1718), and diarrhea (21.7%; 373/1718) (Baseline Characteristics of the Study Population in the Intervention and Control Arms (Standard Routine)Abbreviations: IgM, immunoglobulin M; RDT, rapid diagnostic test; RSV, respiratory syncytial virus; WBC, white blood cell.Prior to testing, a presumptive diagnosis of malaria was reported in 31.9% of cases. Post-testing, 75% of cases were confirmed as malaria. All patients received a malaria RDT (100%; 1718/1718) as per standard practice at the recruitment health centers. CRP (92.1%; 788/856) and WBC (91.9%; 787/856) were systematically tested in the intervention arm (results shown in For the 788 CRP test results, 338 mg/L (42.9%), 245 mg/L (31.1%), and 205 mg/L (26.0%) were in the categories of less than 20, 20–80, and greater than 80, respectively. For WBC total counts, 529 counted/microliter (67.2%) and 258 counted/microliter (32.8%) were less than 11 000 and 11 000 or more, respectively. For neutrophil counts, 717 (91.1%) and 70 (8.9%) were <75% and ≥75%, respectively.