Global burden of childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea

Abstract

Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the leading infectious causes of childhood morbidity and mortality. We comprehensively reviewed the epidemiology of childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia in 2010-11 to inform the planning of integrated control programmes for both illnesses. We estimated that, in 2010, there were 1·731 billion episodes of diarrhoea (36 million of which progressed to severe episodes) and 120 million episodes of pneumonia (14 million of which progressed to severe episodes) in children younger than 5 years. We estimated that, in 2011, 700,000 episodes of diarrhoea and 1·3 million of pneumonia led to death. A high proportion of deaths occurs in the first 2 years of life in both diseases--72% for diarrhoea and 81% for pneumonia. The epidemiology of childhood diarrhoea and that of pneumonia overlap, which might be partly because of shared risk factors, such as undernutrition, suboptimum breastfeeding, and zinc deficiency. Rotavirus is the most common cause of vaccine-preventable severe diarrhoea (associated with 28% of cases), and Streptococcus pneumoniae (18·3%) of vaccine-preventable severe pneumonia. Morbidity and mortality from childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea are falling, but action is needed globally and at country level to accelerate the reduction.

Lung disease in indigenous children

“…16 While there are substantial inter-country and inter-continental differences in the annual incidence of pneumonia globally (0.33 episodes per child-year in Africa, 0.05 in developed countries 16 ), there is also wide intra-country variability. 16 For example, in contrast to the rest of M a n u s c r i p t 7 Australia, ALRIs are the commonest cause of preventable deaths in infants, emergency medical retrievals from remote communities, and hospitalizations among indigenous children aged <5-years. 17 The incidence of hospitalized-pneumonia among infants in the Northern Territory of Australia (the region with the highest proportion of indigenous people) is 0.43 per child-year.…”

“…64 Addressing acute and chronic childhood respiratory disease is also important as the antecedents of chronic respiratory disease in adults are likely to occur in childhood. Sub-optimally treated people A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 16 with bronchiectasis die early and Australian Indigenous adults with BE die in their 30s and 40s. 52 Many of the common respiratory conditions discussed in this article are potentially modifiable or preventable through clinically based interventions.…”

Induction of the pneumococcal vncRS operon by lactoferrin is essential for pneumonia

“…Pneumonia is a highly prevalent acute respiratory disease with high morbidity and mortality rates that resulted in over 1.3 million deaths in 2010 alone [11]. The major causative agent of pneumonia, Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus), asymptomatically colonizes the nasopharynx and causes potentially life-threatening infections, including sepsis and meningitis [12].…”

Initial study of three different pathogenic microorganisms by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

“…Some studies in developing countries have suggested that gram-negative rods (such as E. coli ) are the major causes of infection in premature infants (0–6 days) 5– 7 . Furthermore, infections caused by E. coli are one of the most important causes of death in the early neonatal period 5 . Candida albicans is an opportunistic pathogen and an agent of nosocomial infection 8 .…”