Washington, Oct 22 : A study has found that if health workers in low-income countries were given small financial incentives, the huge death toll due to malaria in young children might reduce.

The study, conducted at the national hospital in Guinea-Bisaau, had poor conditions, no direct access to medical drugs, and the workers were poorly paid, claimed that staff training alone was not a solution to save lives of the kids and so the researchers evaluated whether training, together with availability of drugs and small financial incentives would be of any help or not.

At the beginning of the study, 951 children diagnosed with malaria in the age group of 3 months to 5 years who were admitted to hospital were randomised to the intervention or control wards and a 28-day follow-up visit was arranged.

Before the study started, all personnel were trained in the use of guidelines of standardised malaria case management.

Nurses and physicians were randomised to work on the intervention or the control ward. Personnel working on the intervention ward were given a small financial incentive of 50 dollar a month. Their compliance with the guidelines was closely observed.

The analysis showed that for the intervention case fatality was 5 percent group and 10 percent in the control group, so among children the intervention effectively halved the case fatality.

The researchers said that the analysis show that the quality of care in the paediatric ward depends not only on training and availability of drugs, but also on financial incentives adequate to allow staff to work fully and efficiently in the hospital.

The study is published on bmj.com today. (ANI)