Each year more than three million children die before they reach the age of five from acute respiratory infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, HIV-related lung disease, and asthma. Most of these children die from severe pneumonia, which is five times more common in developing countries than in developed countries, with a death rate that is 10 to 50 times higher.
Pneumonia occurs less and is less deadly in the developed world due in part to vaccination and the availability of cheap and effective antibiotics. Many low income countries cannot afford the vaccines or the antibiotics, and efforts are further hindered by inadequate drug distribution. Moreover, there is generally no clear protocols for treatment of childhood pneumonia, so if sick children present in an emergency room, they may not be treated using evidence-based techniques.
One of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals is to reduce the mortality rate of children under five by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. The World Lung Foundation contributes to international efforts to reach this goal by supporting innovative approaches to improving child lung health, such as the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease’s Child Lung Health Project. This project demonstrated that use of standard case management and other training and management techniques developed for tuberculosis control could also be effective with child pneumonia. In Malawi, where the initial project took place, pneumonia deaths in children under five were reduced from 20-25% to 10.3% of all cases.
