The at risk child clinic (ARCC): 3 years of health activities in support of the most vulnerable children in Beira, Mozambique

Abstract

The concept of “children at risk” changes worldwide according to each specific context. Africa has a large burden of overall risk factors related to childhood health and development, most of which are of an infective or social origin. The aim of this study was to report and analyze the volumes of activities of fifteen At Risk Child Clinics (ARCCs) within the Beira District (Mozambique) over a 3 year-period in order to define the health profile of children accessing such health services. We retrospectively analyzed the data from all of the children accessing one of the 15 Beira ARCCs from January 2015 to December 2017. From this, 17,657 first consultations were registered. The motivations for accessing the services were in order of relevance: HIV exposure (n. 12,300; 69.7%), other risk conditions (n. 2542; 14.4%), Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) (n. 1664; 9.4%), Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) (n. 772; 4.4%), and TB exposure (n. 542; 3.1%). During the first consultations, 16,865 children were screened for HIV (95.5%), and 7.89% tested HIV-positive. In our three years of experience, HIV exposure was the main indication for children to access the ARCCs in Mozambique. ARCCs could represent a strategic point to better understand health demands and to monitor the quality of care provided to this vulnerable population group, however significant effort is needed to improve the quality of the data collection.