In a first of its kind plan, the WHO and UNICEF have come out with an integrated strategy, which includes better sanitation and medical intervention, to save two million infants from falling prey to pneumonia and diarrhoea, by 2025.
In India, pneumonia and diarrhoea account for 23 per cent and 12 per cent respectively of under-five (age) child deaths. Globally, the two diseases account for 29 per cent of all child deaths below the age of five, and result in the loss of two million lives each year.
The 10-year action plan, estimated to cost USD 6.0 billion by the UN agencies, has called for access to 90 per cent of all children to antibiotics for pneumonia and oral rehydration salts for diarrhea, up from current levels of 31 and 35 per cent respectively.
The report, which includes up-to-date strategies and makes recommendations to various countries on interventions needed to reduce child deaths significantly, was released on Friday. By involving care providers, especially frontline health workers and communities, the integrated global plan hopes to reduce mortality from pneumonia in children below five to less than three per 1,000 live births, and from diarrhea to less than one per 1,000 live births by 2025.
To reach these goals, other targets must be achieved - 90 per cent full-dose coverage of all relevant vaccines, 90 per cent access to pneumonia and diarrhoea case management, at least 50 per cent coverage of exclusive breastfeeding during first six months of an infant’s life and virtual elimination of pediatric HIV, says the report.
Children are dying because services are provided piecemeal and those most at risk are not being reached. Use of effective interventions remains too low; for instance only 39 per cent of babies less than six months are exclusively breastfed, while only 60 per cent with suspected pneumonia access appropriate care, adds the report.
It also relies on boosting the use of newer vaccines against pneumococcal bacteria, which causes about 20 per cent of severe pneumonia cases, and rotavirus, which accounts for 28 per cent of cases of severe diarrhea but 50 per cent of deaths from it.