EthioBlog

Ethiopia - Saving Children’s Lives from Pneumonia

U.S. Commemorates World Pneumonia Day in Ethiopia

November 2, 2009 Addis Ababa (U.S. Embassy) – On the first-ever World Pneumonia Day, the United States and countries around the world are observing this day as an opportunity to raise global awareness of pneumonia and reaffirm the commitment to save the lives of children.

“A majority of child deaths can be prevented through vaccines, early diagnosis and proper treatment with antibiotics that cost less than a dollar,” said USAID Mission Director Thomas H. Staal. “Ensuring better health for the world's children is a gift we must deliver for it will be today’s children who will become tomorrow’s doctors, scientists, engineers and leaders.”

On behalf of the American people, USAID is working with the Ethiopian Government and partners to improve child health and save children dying of preventable causes. Our efforts are increasing coordination and scaling up known, effective child health interventions that can reach children to prevent or treat the most important causes of child death – pneumonia, malaria, and diarrhea.

USAID’s strategy for pneumonia targets the household, the community, first-level health providers and first-level referral facilities. Efforts to improve antibiotic treatment, for example, focus on educating caretakers to recognize the signs of pneumonia, training and supporting community-based health workers to correctly classify and treat pneumonia, and working with private practitioners and public providers to improve the quality of their child health services.

USAID also supports vaccinations against all of the diseases that give pneumonia a foothold, promotes exclusive breastfeeding for new mothers, good nutrition, hand washing, and works to reduce exposure to indoor air pollution. In addition, safe, effective vaccines are available that prevent two of the major causes of severe pneumonia: pneumococcus and Hib.

Pneumonia has long been one of the greatest threats to child survival, killing more than 2 million children under 5 each year—more than measles, malaria, and AIDS combined. But pneumonia is largely preventable and treatable with antibiotics.

USAID is also funding a 2010 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey to support the monitoring and evaluation needs by tracking changes in key health indicators. Part of the survey is to collect high quality data on family health, including immunization coverage, among children, prevalence and treatment of diarrhea and other diseases.

Effective management of pneumonia is critical to improving child survival. Being able to treat children with severe pneumonia safely and effectively in their own homes would be of huge benefit to both families and health systems, by reducing the need for admission to hospital. In developing countries, where the nearest doctor may be a three-day walk away, pneumonia frequently goes undiagnosed. Ethiopia is making tremendous effort for improving primary health coverage by training and deploying over 30,000 Health Extension Workers (HEW). USAID is one of the key government partners in providing support to the health extension program through training and strengthening supportive supervisions. Though its Integrated Family Health program USAID is building the capacity of HEW and their supervisors in 300 woredas for implementing program interventions on FP/RH and MNCH.