Leading Cause of Child Death in India

Risk factors associated with the diseases you identified

In India more then 55% of death for children ages 5 and below is caused by neonatal death. This includes; pneumonia, sepsis, diarrhea, tetanus, prematurity, birth asphyxia, and congenital abnormalities. Outside of neonatal deaths, the next leading cause of death is pneumonia. Children are at a greater risk of getting pneumonia because their immune systems are not fully developed and at their strongest yet. “Pneumonia occurs when an infection develops within the lungs. It can cause complications with breathing and spread to other parts of the body such as the bloodstream.”(Villines 2017). Pneumonia is a huge issue in India because of poor healthcare in the country. Children are constantly at risk to get pneumonia because they do not have access to proper education, treatment, and prevention as other countries do.

Cost and consequences

There is a high cost to pneumonia for those in India. The cost of treatment alone can be extremely high and therefore is not commonly found in this country. Another factor that goes into cost is the cost to get populations educated on pneumonia and ways to prevent it as well as treat it the best they can if their child gets it. These are all rather costly. Not to mention the consequences of this disease could lead to death which can be costly but if the child does not die from pneumonia they are at a greater risk of coming down with the disease again because their immune system is not strong enough to keep fighting it off.

References

Awasthi, S. (2020). Fight Against Community Acquired Pneumonia in India, Prof. Shally Awasthi. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rua96_xQRE [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].

Balarajan, Y., Selvaraj, S., & Subramanian, S. V. (2011). Health care and equity in India. The Lancet, 377(9764), 505-515.

Deribew, A., Tessema, G. A., Deribe, K., Melaku, Y. A., Lakew, Y., Amare, A. T., … & Misganaw, A. (2016). Trends, causes, and risk factors of mortality among children under 5 in Ethiopia, 1990–2013: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Population health metrics, 14(1), 42.

Fernandes, K. (2020). CSR Campaign on Childhood Pneumonia in India – The CSR Journal. [online] The CSR Journal. Available at: https://thecsrjournal.in/csr-campaign-on-childhood-pneumonia-in-india/ [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].

Rajaratnam, J. K., Marcus, J. R., Flaxman, A. D., Wang, H., Levin-Rector, A., Dwyer, L., … & Murray, C. J. (2010). Neonatal, postneonatal, childhood, and under-5 mortality for 187 countries, 1970–2010: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 4. The Lancet, 375(9730), 1988-2008.

Saans, H. and Zindagi, M. (2020). Philips launches Childhood Pneumonia Awareness campaign. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQgbTiXTkS4&feature=emb_title [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].

Villines, Z. (2020). Pneumonia: Transmission, risk factors, causes, and prevention. [online] Medical News Today. Available at: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319581.php#risk-factors [Accessed 3 Feb. 2020].

Key players, Policies, and Programs

Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death for children in India. “It has been estimated that in India incidence of pneumonia among under-fives is 0.37 episodes/year, resulting in 43 million new cases. Of all pneumonia cases, 7-13% are severe enough to require hospitalization. Pneumonia causes an estimated 408,000 deaths among under-fives contributing to 19% of child mortality in India.” (Malik & Taneja, 2013) The key players faced with helping and changing the pneumonia epidemic in India are government officials, those in higher-income countries and the countries’ healthcare force. With the help of all three of these key players, they could make huge changes to lower the mortality rate of children by pneumonia.

Key Players’ Existing Challenges

The challenges the face is quite large. They face challenges of all kinds; monetary, environment, religion, resource, education, and more. These challenges are not easy to face or fix but they can be improved by these key players. Many of these challenges coincide with each other. As one improves the other will as well. The more resources that the key players can provide the more they will have to help educate the population on prevention. They will also be able to help more children with treatment the more resources they have to treat and the more healthcare officials are educated on treatments. With more treatment and better treatment available the more money that will come into the country helping monetarily. Religious beliefs can not be forced to change so that is a variable that is in the hands of each individual. That will always be a challenge when different religions do not believe in certain treatments. These are all very large challenges but I do believe they can be improved once this epidemic is put as a larger priority to the key player.

Future Opportunities for Key Players and Global Communities

The future is very bright for the key player of this pneumonia epidemic. There are many different opportunities for them to improve the statistics of child mortality from pneumonia. As stated above they have opportunities to change many of the challenges they face by focusing on one at a time. They have the chance to help educate a whole country and truly change the future of this country. As a global community, we have a responsibility to help a country in need. Many countries around the world have already solved this problem so it is time to help other countries that need it now. We can help educate and spread the wealth to get treatment to the countries that need it. As technology improved and spreads the possibilities are endless for the key players. This could be a solved problem in the next few years with new treatments, education, and technology that comes out in the next few years.

Refrences

Malik, A., & Taneja, D. (2013, October). Conjugate pneumococcal vaccines: need and choice in India. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3831686/

Rudan, I., Boschi-Pinto, C., Biloglav, Z., Mulholland, K., & Campbell, H. (2008). Epidemiology and etiology of childhood pneumonia. Bulletin of the world health organization, 86, 408-416B.

Wolfson, L. J., Watt, J. P., Henkle, E., Oria-Knoll, M., & McCall, N. (2009). Burden of disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae in children younger than 5 years: global esimates. Lancet, 374(9693), 893r902.

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Leading Cause of Child Death in India

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