Medical Health Care

Medical health care includes clinical preventive and treatment services. This component of the AHI HPS model aims to promote health among school children through screening to identify the need for immunisation or treatment, and organising referrals. It identifies local needs for vaccination, check whether the schoolchildren have been vaccinated and organise referrals for vaccination to all children in need. Facilitating access and delivery to vaccination programmes will assure that all children can benefit from this essential public health strategy. Vaccination, after clean water, is the most effective public health intervention for saving lives and promoting good health and is recommended by the WHO (http://www.who.int/topics/immunization/en/). Similarly, it carries out screenings for the most common health challenges in the globe and highly prevalent in low-income communities. They are respiratory diseases (e.g.: colds and flu, pneumonia), parasitic infections (e.g.: malaria, worms, lice, scabies, giardiasis), anaemia, gastroenteritis, diarrhoea, food poisoning, meningitis, hepatitis A, Ebola, zika, dengue, yellow fever, sense organ diseases, depression and anxiety. Screening tools includes screening questionnaires, stool analysis, screening tests. Following the health screening and obtaining the results of the stool analysis, data is entered in a spreadsheet and analysed. A list of school children needing vaccination and treatment is produced. A computer programme generates referral letters using a template form to be sent to local public primary health care unit. The school activities coordinator organises and monitors the referrals for treatment and vaccination to ensure the school children receive the immunisation and/or the treatment needed.