A version of this post originally appeared on the Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) program blog [7]. SIAPS is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Management Sciences for Health (MSH).

More than 900,000 children die of pneumonia each year. Many of these cases go undiagnosed and untreated. The countdown to 2015 report [8] notes that only 54 percent of children with pneumonia symptoms are taken to a health care provider, while the Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhea [9] reports that only 31 percent of children with suspected pneumonia receive antibiotics.

Despite improvements in child survival in recent decades, children in low- and middle-income countries still suffer from illnesses virtually nonexistent in the industrial world.

Pneumonia is the deadliest of these [13], responsible for the death of 900,000 children under five worldwide in 2013 [14]—more than any other infectious disease.

And more children are killed by pneumonia in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) than in any other country except for India and Nigeria. Every year, approximately 148,000 children under five [15] die of pneumonia, accounting for 15 percent of child deaths in the country.

Every year, pneumonia kills approximately 936,000 children under the age of five [28], accounting for 15 percent of all deaths within this age group. One of the worst affected countries is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where pneumonia took the lives of nearly 50,000 children in 2013, including almost 7,000 newborns.

For the sixth year, people around the global are bringing awareness to this critical—and solvable—problem by commemorating World Pneumonia Day [29] today, November 12th. This year’s theme is: “Universal access to pneumonia prevention and care [30]”.

CDC: World Pneumonia Day 2014 [31]

We know what works to save the lives of children under five years old: We know which antibiotic to give for treating pneumonia, for example. Yet only 31% of children with suspected pneumonia receive antibiotics. [34] And two million children die from pneumonia and diarrhea each year.

Cross-posted from Frontline Health Workers Coalition [37].

Evidence of the need to scale up the number of frontline health workers in developing countries abounds throughout sub-Saharan Africa, as described in a recent post [38] on the Frontline Health Workers Coalition blog by Avril Ogrodnick of Abt Associates [39]. Yet training new health workers is not sufficient, in itself, to sustainably address the crisis: governments must also invest in providing management support to harvest the full value of these trainings.

Today, October 15, children, schools, and communities around the world mark Global Handwashing Day [42].

Washing hands with soap is the "most effective and inexpensive way [42] to prevent diarrheal and acute respiratory infections, which take the lives of millions of children in developing countries every year." In addition to handwashing with soap, proper sanitation and safe drinking water are key to preventing disease.

"Most of what we need to do to bring down the rate of child deaths is inexpensive & straightforward," USAID Administrator Raj Shah [43] said today on Twitter. In addition to handwashing with soap, "add a bednet, vaccines, nutrition, rehydration, newborn care; we know how to drastically reduce child deaths."

About 7.6 million children under age five die each year of preventable causers; 3 million — 40 percent — are newborns (under 28 days old). Ninety-nine percent of these occur in developing countries; three-quarters are mainly due to preventable causes such as neonatal conditions, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and measles. Many of these under-five deaths could be averted by known, affordable, low-technology interventions.

Any preventable child death is one too many.

Here are 10 important interventions for child survival --- a list that is by no means exhaustive:

1. Exclusive breastfeeding

   Could keep 1.3 million infants from dying (including by preventing pneumonia)

2. Long-lasting, insecticide-treated bednets

   Would save more than 500,000 children by preventing malaria

3. Vaccines, such as PCV, Hib, and rotavirus

   Would help prevent common childhood illnesses, such as measles, and save children’s lives

4. Micronutrient supplements, such as vitamin A and zinc

   Would fight malnutrition. (While not a direct cause of death, malnutrition contributes indirectly to more than one-third of these deaths.)

Cross-posted on USAID's IMPACT blog [52]

My most vivid early childhood memory is waking up to excruciating pain in my throat, and seeing the goldfish swimming in the aquarium of the pediatric surgical ward. Although penicillin had been discovered 30 years earlier, doctors had not learned yet that treating "strep throats” with penicillin was better than operating. I didn't need the tonsillectomy. But, I was lucky to receive quality care in a health facility, close to my home.

Millions of children today are not so lucky. Over 7 million children under the age of 5 die each year; 70 percent of child deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. The vast majority -- over two-thirds -- are entirely avoidable with existing safe, effective, low-cost prevention and treatment.

 

A version of this post originally appeared on the Save the Children [56] website.

The healthcare system in South Sudan is struggling to get on to its feet after the devastation of over 20 years of war. The biggest killers of children in southern Sudan are malaria, diarrhea and respiratory infections. These preventable diseases can be easy to treat. But, on average, only one in four people in South Sudan are within reach of a health center. Only 3 percent of children under two in South Sudan are fully immunized against killer diseases and only 12 percent of families have a mosquito net in their home.