Acknowledgements

The Ministry of Health (MoH) would like to extend sincere thanks to those who generously provided their input to the development of this course, including each member of the stakeholder group and the facilitators and candidates at the pilot course. We acknowledge UNICEF Malawi who supported the initial development of the Care of the Infant and Newborn (COIN) course and continues to support its roll out; NEST360° (Rice University and Malawi College of Medicine) who have supported updating the COIN material, developed and installed appropriate technologies in the Sick Newborn Care Units, provided training material and incorporated these into the COIN training material. We would also like to acknowledge members, past and present, of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, both Blantyre and Lilongwe campuses, at the University of Malawi College Of Medicine who have contributed to the material in the COIN course through their input into guidelines developed over the years. Thanks to members of the Paediatric and Child Health Association in Malawi (PACHA) who lead the development and revision of the course and continue to support its implementation. Thanks to all healthcare staff in Malawi, who contributed ideas and time to develop this document and who strive daily to ensure provision of optimal care to neonates and young infants. The MoH also appreciates Bernadette O’Hare, Kondwani Kawaza, Rizine Mzikamanda, Josephine Langton, Sara Liaghati-Mobarhan, Emmie Mbale and Elizabeth Molyneux, for the development of the manual and associated material; and Norman Lufesi, Ajib Phiri, Queen Dube, Chikondi Chimbatata, Hanny Friesen, Laura Newberry, Andreas Hansmann, George Chagaluka, and Sara Desai for their input. In particular we would like to acknowledge the contributions of Elizabeth Moylneux, Emmie Mbale and Sara Desai who reviewed, formatted and edited the whole document.

The MoH is grateful to all the creators and developers of several life support courses especially WHO, the ETAT and ETAT+ teams in Africa, and the Child and Newborn Health Group. Much of the material from these courses has been gratefully borrowed and adapted for this COIN manual. All the trainings and the approaches to training are intended to be as consistent as possible with the WHO / UNICEF Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) programme and initiatives such as the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), Help Babies Breathe (HBB) and Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment (ETAT) that are implemented in Malawi. The basic text describing the evidence-based care promoted through this course is the WHO’s ‘Pocketbook of Hospital Care for Children’ and in the Guidelines and Protocols for Neonatal and Young Infant Care in Malawi. The manual has been complemented with the NEST 360 modules which are evidence based and have peer reviewed and have been published. As such, COIN guidelines is a blend of established guidelines put together to provide the best approach for our setting. This is a course about care of newborns and infants and though accidents can happen at this age, trauma is rare and therefore it has been omitted from this course.

We appreciate the critical role that the good care of mothers makes to the outcomes of neonates and young infants and are committed to working collaboratively with our colleagues in maternal health towards our common goal of improving maternal and child health in Malawi.

Dr George Chithope Mwale
Director of Curative and Medical rehabilitation

Technical support
The app in its first version (2018) has been created with the help of Daniel Hampf, the leading software engineer. The work of Dr. Sara Loetz, Mphatso Njazi, Blessings Chilunga, and Levi Banda was crucial in entering the content into the correct format. Your aid is highly appreciated.
The 2022 update has been done by Mphatso Njazi and Dr. Sara Loetz.

Contact
In any enquires regarding the app please contact Sara Loetz via email: Sara.Loetz@posteo.de