Pneumonia despite being preventable and curable, is the world's (and India’s) leading killer of children under five, claiming one young life every 20 seconds. That’s 4,300 young lives lost every day. That's more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. Pneumonia is one of public health’s most solvable problems, said Dr Ajay Mishra, Managing Director, Nelson Hospital for Paediatric and Neonatal Medicine, Aliganj, Lucknow. “We have safe, effective and affordable tools to help children. Children should have access to effective and affordable treatment using antibiotics, which typically cost less than one dollar per dose. Tragically, only an estimated 1 of every 5 children with pneumonia receives antibiotics” said Dr Ajay Mishra.
A book titled “Voices from the field on childhood pneumonia” was released electronically and in hard copy in three languages – English, Hindi and Urdu, which is a compilation of articles authored by a group of ten citizen journalists who write for online portal CNS: www.citizen-news.org
The group of authors include: Shobha Shukla, Somya Arora, Shikha Srivastava, Rahul Kumar Dwivedi, Ritesh Arya, Neeraj Mainali, Nadeem Salmani, Jitendra Dwivedi, Jittima Jantanamalaka and Bobby Ramakant.
These articles have been written as part of a CNS series in lead up to the World Pneumonia Day, 12 November 2011.
These authors conducted interviews with paediatricians, gynaecologists and obstetricians, parents and guardians of children who had pneumonia and other public health experts in Lucknow, Bahraich and Gorakhpur, during October-November 2011. They focussed on the following five themes:
Theme 1: Importance of exclusive breastfeeding during the 1st six months of life in protecting children from pneumonia and many other diseases
Theme 2: Importance of good nutrition and hygiene (including hand-washing) in preventing pneumonia and other diseases
Theme 3: Importance of indoor air pollution (cook stove, tobacco smoke) in preventing pneumonia and other diseases
Theme 4: Access to affordable vaccines in our communities to prevent childhood pneumonia
Theme 5: Access to standard quality treatment to save lives from pneumonia
The publication is online at: www.citizen-news.org and readers are welcome to download or distribute it for public cause.
CNS
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