The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Pneumonia has been claiming the highest number of child lives in the country, despite a remarkable progress in under-five child survival for immunisation and oral saline over the last three decades, pediatricians and health scientists said in the city yesterday.

"Pneumonia is still the leading cause of childhood deaths in Bangladesh," Steve Luby, agency head of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US Embassy in Dhaka, told a symposium.

Bangladesh Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (BSPID), a newly formed body of paediatricians and health scientists, organised the two-day function at Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Centre (BCFCC) where experts from home and abroad are participating. The symposium will be followed by a daylong workshop on 'critical care management and practical approaches' at Pedihope Hospital at Dhanmondi today (Saturday), organisers said, adding that the objective of the workshop was to show management of the emerging and re-emerging childhood infectious diseases practically.

BSPID president and former director of Dhaka Shishu Hospital Professor Manzoor Hussain chaired the inaugural function, addressed by National Professor M R Khan, noted paediatrician Professor MQK Talukder, Professor Dr Satish Deopoojari of India, BSPID secretary general Dr Samir K Saha, and BSPID executives Dr Reaz Mobarak and Dr Mizanur Rahman.

Steve Luby, also head of the programme on infectious disease of International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), said one in five children per 1,000 live births died within five years of their age during 1975, but this number has come down by 75 percent over the last three decades.

"There is a 90 percent reduction alone in diarrhoea-specific deaths over last 30 years," he said referring to the statistics of the latest Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS). He said Bangladesh is one of the three to four developing countries heading successfully towards achieving millennium development goals (MDGs).

Of eight millenium goals, MDG 4 and 5 are specific to achieving targets of maternal and child health. MDG 4 targets to reduce under-five child mortality by two-thirds and MDG 5 focuses on reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters.