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Dr Nachiket Sule, CNS Correspondent, India During the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) period, the global under 5 mortality rate declined by more than half— from 90 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 43 deaths per 1000 live births in 2015. India had an estimated 609,000 deaths among children under the age of 5 due to pneumonia and diarrhea in 2010, the highest amongst all the countries in the world. According to the recent WHO estimates of 2015 , 14.9% deaths of children under 5 years of age reported in India were attributable to pneumonia. Excluding the deaths in the neonatal age-group, WHO estimated that 28.4% deaths of children aged 1-59 months in India are due to pneumonia, which is the highest cause of death in this age-group. WHO and UNICEF have developed an integrated Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPPD ) to end preventable childhood deaths due to pneumonia and diarrhea by 2025. The plan focuses on a three pronged approach of Protect, Prevent and Treat. Ta...

Aarti Dhar, CNS Correspondent, India (First published in TheIndiasaga.com ) According to the Global Coalition Against Childhood Pneumonia (GCACP ), pneumonia is the most deadly infectious illness for children under 5 years of  age worldwide. Even as 2000 to 2015, the annual death toll from childhood pneumonia decreased from 1.7 million deaths in 2000 to 920,000 in 2015, approximately 2,500 children still die from pneumonia every day. This amounts to 16% of all child deaths. Children all over the globe are affected by pneumonia, but a 2012 study found that low- and middle-income nations bear the largest burden: less than 1% of childhood deaths occur in developed countries and over 90% of deaths in children under-5 years of age occur in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. 50% of all pneumonia deaths occur in India. Pneumonia has a number of bacterial, viral, and fungal causes. The illness can be caused by bacteria and viruses already present in the body, or it can be transmitted from ...

Citizen News Service - CNS Despite being preventable and treatable, it is unacceptable that Pneumonia continues to be a leading infectious killer for children under five years globally. Dr Ajay Mishra, Senior Director and Head of Paediatrics, Nelson Hospital in Lucknow, said in a webinar (recording, podcast) that "while pneumonia in children is preventable and treatable, it still remains the number one killer of children below the age of 5 years, killing 760,000 children aged 1-59 months in 2015. With 35 million pneumonia episodes per year India tops the 15 high pneumonia burden countries. More than 90% of all pneumonia deaths occur in developing countries out of which 50% occur in India." Dr Ajay Mishra added: "Risk factors for childhood pneumonia include poor immunisation coverage; low birth weight, malnutrition, not exclusively breast feeding the infant for first 6 months; Vitamin A and zinc deficiency; indoor air pollution (from tobacco smoke for example), and poor ...