Reducing mortality from childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea: The leading priority is also the greatest opportunity

Pneumonia and diarrhoea have been the leading causes of global child mortality for many decades. The work of Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) has been pivotal in raising awareness that the UN's Millennium Development Goal 4 cannot be achieved without increased focus on preventing and treating the two diseases in low– and middle–income countries. Global Action Plan for Pneumonia (GAPP) and Diarrhoea Global Action Plan (DGAP) groups recently concluded that addressing childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea is not only the leading priority but also the greatest opportunity in global health today: scaling up of existing highly cost–effective interventions could prevent 95% of diarrhoea deaths and 67% of pneumonia deaths in children younger than 5 years by the year 2025. The cost of such effort was estimated at about US$ 6.7 billion.