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June 2010 ESPID supports interventions to reduce worldwide child mortality caused by pneumonia and measles The European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID) applauds the adoption of Resolution at the 63rd World Health Assembly, prioritizing interventions to reduce child mortality caused by pneumonia and measles worldwide. The Millennium Development Goal 4 (reduce child mortality) can only be achieved through intensified efforts to reduce the major causes of death in children under the age of five years: pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition and neonatal problems. Of these conditions, pneumonia remains the leading killer of children under five years of age worldwide, accounting for 1.8 million of the estimated 9 million deaths in 2007 of children under five years of age, according to the 2009 World Health Statistics Report. We strongly support these resolutions encouraging all efforts to achieve measles eradication by 2015 and to provide all available preventative measures and access to hygiene and care to reduce pneumonia unbearable mortality burden in young children. Mortality due to childhood pneumonia is strongly linked to malnutrition, poverty and inadequate access to health care. As the leading European Society in the field of paediatric infectious diseases, we encourage our members to take part in, or lead actions to help maintain or obtain high measles vaccination coverage, and to sensitize countries on the essential need to immunize difficult-to-reach populations. In 1998, the European Region set the goal of eliminating measles and rubella and preventing congenital rubella infection by 2010. Measles incidence in the Region declined from 90 reported cases per million to historically low levels of 10 cases or less per million in 2007. However, in 2008, there was a resurgence of measles cases in western European countries. The majority of outbreaks have been in unimmunized populations in countries where national immunization programmes are challenged by a combination of public and political complacency regarding the value of immunization and the rising influence of anti-vaccination groups. This has led to measles epidemics in several European countries, primarily in Germany, Romania, Switzerland, Italy and the United Kingdom over the last decade. Similarly, we encourage them to help in increasing awareness of pneumonia as the world’s leading killer of children and to support the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia from the WHO and UNICEF . In the WHO European Region (EURO), pneumonia still accounts for an estimated 31,500 deaths annually in children less than five years of age, stressing that access to care and prevention must be improved. In the fight for child survival, the time for action is now. Without a dedicated effort to prioritize pneumonia prevention and treatment and global eradication of measles, the world-effort to reach UN MDG 4 (i.e. reduce under five mortality by two third for 2015) will fail. We thank the WHO and its Member States for their leadership, and we urge all partners in the field of infectious diseases and paediatrics to work together to proactively protect children from pneumonia and measles. Dear ESPID members, we, the ESPID Board, ask all of you to support this resolution of the World Health Assembly in your daily activities and functions as paediatric infectious disease specialists and opinion leaders on a regional, national and international level. Ulrich Heininger |