Abstract:
Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of febrile conditions is a key strategy towards control
of the disease from progressing to severe or fatal stages. In this paper, we studied the timing of
treatment among children with a history of diarrhoea and fever in Namibia, while simultaneously
investigated socio-economic and spatial factors that influence the treatment seeking behaviour. A
multinomial probit model with ordered categories was estimated, and results confirmed that there
was significant spatial variation at regional level. Socio-economic factors also explain treatment
seeking having controlled for spatial dependence. The spatial variation can be interpreted as
representing unobserved heterogeneity not captured by the data or possible clustering inherent
in nested survey data.
