2 children die of pneumonia every hour in Bangladesh: Report

Two children die of pneumonia every hour in Bangladesh, according to the National Situation Analysis Report of Pneumonia 2018.

Save the Children revealed the information as it unveiled its Global Childhood Report 2019 at the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka today.

Pneumonia is also the leading cause of death among children below the age of five.

Around 16 per cent of the deaths of children aged below five are caused by pneumonia, the report said.

However, the overall rate of children’s death has declined significantly.

Since 2000, the child mortality rate has decreased by 63 per cent, according to WHO Global Health Observatory data.

Besides, the ranking of Bangladesh in the Global Childhood Report 2019 has also improved as it moved three notches up to 127 out of 176 countries.

Bangladesh’s ranking was 130 in 2018.

The report was prepared based on the data collected from reliable sources like Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), health survey reports and others.

The ranking was done on the basis of seven indicators including child mortality rate, malnutrition, child labour, dropout of school, and child marriage.

According to the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, the child mortality rate within poverty-stricken population is double than that in rich population, the report also revealed.

Embracing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), economic investment, capacity building, policy implementation, and decreased discrimination are the reasons why Bangladesh is improving on the ranking, Dr Ishtiak Mannan, deputy country director of Save the Children in Bangladesh, said at the event.

The worldwide situation of children’s wellbeing is also on the positive side apart from the situation in global conflict-ridden regions, he added.