The number of schools which have introduced IMCI (Integrated Management of Childhood Illness) in their pre-service teaching in the Region keeps increasing.

The Regional Office has proposed a number of criteria as guidance to the initial selection of teaching institutions which have expressed interest in introducing IMCI elements in their programmes.

It is recommended that a country embarks on the pre-service training initiative only after the completion of the IMCI in-service Early Implementation Phase, during which the IMCI guidelines and approach are field-tested in a few areas and revised according to the findings. In-service and pre-service interventions are therefore complementary.