In Senegal, governmental fight plan against malaria emphasizes the need to community actions, particularly for early treatment of child malaria at home. So, we carried out a cross sectional survey, to determine factors linked with treatment of child malaria at home. During February 2001, we had an interview with persons taking care of a child under five years. These persons were randomly chosen among population of a rural town. Their median age was 32 years, 90.5% of them were women, 77.8% were the mother of the child. Their level of knowledge about malaria was fair (hightest transmission period, promoting environmental factors); 85.1% quoted children as vulnerable group; for 85%, fever was chief sign of malaria. When the child had fever, 45% of them brought him to a health center and 44% gave him chloroquin; 67.5% related no harmful effects. But at the time of the survey, only 28.8% had chloroquin at home. Literacy was very linked with home care: literate persons knowed most frequently the way of transmission by mosquito bites (72.4% versus 52.9% p<10-4 OR=2.3[1.5-3.6]); they considered most frequently chloroquin as the malaria treatment (74% versus 60.1% p=.003 OR=1.8 [1.2-2.9]) ;they had more often chloroquin at home (35.4% versus 22.6% p=.004 OR=1.8 [1.1-2.9). In conclusion, chloroquin might be available at home. The high ratio of illiterate persons in the population taking care of children in Mekhe emphasizes the need to organize information, education and communication strategies, using persons coming from the same community. The real impact of literacy on knowledges, behaviours and practices of persons taking care of malarial child at home emphasizes the need of reinforcing it, especially for women.