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Text messages boost malaria care
Daily text messages to health workers more than doubled the number of children getting the correct treatment for malaria, research shows.
Half of children received the correct treatment at the end of the study, more than double the starting figure.
Researchers said there was "huge potential" to improve care.
There has been concern that government guidelines on malaria treatments are not always followed in the field.
Guidelines include the correct prescription of anti-malaria drugs - artemether-lumefantrine (AL) - and advice to parents.
Health workers in the study were sent text messages twice a day, five days a week, for six months.
An example of the sort of sent was: "advise mother to finish all AL doses over three days even if the child feels better after two doses".
At the beginning of the study, 20.5% of children were correctly managed, this increased to 49.6% after the six month study.