Diarrhoea, pneumonia kill one child every two minutes in India

In 2016, almost 261,000 Indian children died before their fifth birthday due to diarrhoea or pneumonia.

In 2016, almost 261,000 Indian children died before their fifth birthday due to diarrhoea or pneumonia, both preventable diseases. This is the highest toll taken anywhere in the world by the two diseases--a fifth of their global burden--according to the 2018 Pneumonia & diarrhoea Progress Report, released on November 12, 2018, which was World Pneumonia Day. (Business Standard)

This means that about 735 Indian children died everyday of either disease in 2016--one child every two minutes. Globally, pneumonia and diarrhoea cause a quarter of deaths in children under five and fighting them together can drastically reduce child mortality across the world.

India has had mixed success in the prevention, control and treatment of diarrhoea and pneumonia in the year to 2016: Immunisation coverage improved but there was a decline in treatment indicators, said the report by the International Vaccine Access Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

This report analyses how effectively countries are delivering 10 key interventions to prevent and treat pneumonia and diarrhoea--breastfeeding, vaccination, access to care, use of antibiotics, oral rehydration solution (ORS) and zinc supplementation.

Since 2015, the coverage of Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) vaccine that prevents pneumonia has increased by 8 percentage points in India, as per the report. The number of children covered by rotavirus vaccines that protect against severe diarrhoea and introduced mid-2016 has moved up by 9 percentage points since last year’s report.

In contrast, India’s other treatment indicators decreased: ORS coverage (13 percentage points), exclusive breastfeeding (10 percentage points), and access to pneumonia care (4 percentage points).

Meanwhile, there has been a steady decline in diarrhoea and pneumonia deaths in children below the age of five--almost 7.2 per cent every year for diarrhoea and 6.8 per cent for pneumonia--as per data. From 2000 to 2018, diarrhoea deaths fell by 69.7 per cent--from 339,937 to 102,813--and pneumonia deaths reduced by 67 per cent--from 485,094 to 158,176.

India prevented 1 million deaths among children under five years of age between 2005 and 2015 with interventions such as timely treatment in the case of diarrhoea, vaccinations for tetanus and measles, and increased hospital births, IndiaSpend reported in October 2017.

“India has made tremendous improvements but it needs to do much more,” said Mathu Santosham, professor, department of international health and paediatrics, Johns Hopkins University. “Currently only 20 per cent of children with diarrhoea receive zinc supplements, rotavirus vaccine is still not available across the country and PCV [pneumococcal conjugate vaccine] is rolled out only in six states.”... Read More