engleski

Epidemiology and aetiology of childhood pneumonia

Childhood pneumonia is the leading single cause of mortality in children age less than 5 years. The incidence in this age group is estimated to be 0.29 episodes/child-year in developing and 0.05 eipsodes per child year in developed countries. This translates into about 156 million new episodes each year worldwide and in 151 million new episodes in the developing world. Most cases occur in India (43 million), China (21 million) and Pakistan (10 million), with additional high numbers in Bangladesh, Nigeria and Indonesia (6 million each). Of all community cases, 7?13% are severe enough to be life-threatening and require hospitalization. Substantial evidence revealed that the leading risk factors contributing to pneumonia incidence are lack of exclusive breastfeeding, undernutrition, indoor air pollution, low birth weight, crowding and lack of measles immunization. Pneumonia is responsible for about 19% of all deaths in children age less than 5 years, of which more than 70% take place in sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia. Although based on the scarce available evidence, recent studies have identified Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae and respiratory syncytial virus as the main pathogens associated with childhood pneumonia.

pneumonia; children; epidemiology; aetiology; developing countries

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