Pneumonia remains highest killer among children in Uganda – Health Minister

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng is calling out for more funding to procure pneumonia treatment amoxicillin which is currently distributed by the Village Health Teams to homes.

Aceng who was speaking at the closure of the inaugural global meeting on pneumonia that ended Friday evening in Barcelona, Spain said that the country resolved to distribute the drugs to homes in order for the infection to be captured early at home before translating into severe forms.

At the meeting, countries were challenged to ensure that they don’t have stock outs of drugs especially antibiotics which can be cheaply attained and yet to go a long way to save life.

Currently, according to Ministry of Health statistics, 25 children die of pneumonia every day. Among the interventions to reverse this grim picture, Aceng says they launched an oxygen scale up plan last year since many of these babies die when some facilities fail to avail them oxygen to aid breathing when hypoxemia- lack of adequate oxygen in blood sets in and yet it’s one of the major symptoms of pneumonia.

A senior child health expert at the Ministry, Dr. Julius Otim told Uganda Radio Network that the number of children presented with pneumonia started going down when the country introduced the pneumococcal vaccine in 2013 whose coverage is currently at 96% and is given as a combination pentavalent vaccine which also contains the vaccine against the haemophillus influenza virus.

Globally, Pneumonia claimed the lives of 800,000 children under the age of five in 2018, or one child every 39 seconds, worse than any other disease. Yet the disease remains largely forgotten, especially if you put it against malaria where a lot of both donor and government funding is directed.

The disease is caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi and is treatable by easily available antibiotics and yet can also be prevented by immunization.

The conference that is set to be annual went under the mantra “Fighting for Breath: the Global Forum on Childhood Pneumonia” and is intended to put the disease on the global health agenda such that practical pathways to end it can be forged.

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