Global Burden of Childhood Diarrhea and Pneumonia: What Can and Should Be Done?

Although significant success has occurred in combating the huge number of young children who die each year of common preventable and treatable infectious diseases, many millions still die because of the lack of simple and inexpensive interventions. Dr Bhutta has focused his global health discussion on the massive potential gains by specific targeted efforts on decreasing 2 leading causes, pneumonia and diarrhea. The costs to young lives and the detrimental societal effects of these 2 infectious diseases alone are immense. Dr Bhutta also appropriately points out that greater political will and collaboration among nations will speed up progress in achieving child survival targets as agreed upon in the established Millennium Development Goals. Clearly, pediatricians everywhere should take a strong leadership role in pressing this agenda. —Jay E. Berkelhamer, MD, FAAP Editor, Global Health Monthly Feature Children represent the future of any nation, and it is a societal responsibility to ensure their health, growth, and development. A major goal among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed upon by 190 countries at the Millennium Summit in September 2000 was MDG4 with the specific target of reducing under 5 child deaths by two-thirds, from the 1990 baseline, by the year 2015. Despite considerable progress over the last decade and an average reduction in child mortality of over 2.5 million deaths annually, the rate of reduction is still too slow in many countries to enable them to reach their MDG4 targets.1 In 2011, ∼6.9 million children under 5 years old died, recording a decrease of 5.1 million from the estimated child mortality in 1990.2 The highest rates of child mortality continue to be concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (83%) and with wide variations in the coverage of interventions and high birth rates, this gap may continue to widen. These inequities … Address correspondence to Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, MBBS, FRCP, FRCPCH, FAAP, PhD, Noordin Noormahomed Sharieff Professor and Founding Chair, Division of Women & Child Health, The Aga Khan University, Karachi 74800, Pakistan. E-mail: zulfiqar.bhutta{at}aku.edu