Kenya tops in pneumonia infections
Kenya is among the top 10 countries with the highest proportion of childhood pneumonia in the world.
Other African countries in this group are Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The rest are in Asia.
These countries, says the World Health Organisation, account for 66 per cent of pneumonia cases worldwide.
The WHO study, published this week in The Lancet, a medical journal, attributes the high incidence of pneumonia to lack of vaccines, a high prevalence of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection and poor access to medical care.
However, this may change after the national head of immunisation, Dr Tatu Kamau, promised that by next year a vaccine will be available in all public hospitals at no cost.
Currently, the pneumonia vaccine is available in the private sector for Sh12,000.
The disease is estimated to kill 30,000 children annually. In areas where malaria is not endemic, pneumonia is the leading killer of children under five, while it comes second in malaria endemic areas.
The other contributory factor for the high incidence of pneumonia is the many cases of undiagnosed and untreated cases of sickle cell anaemia.
A study carried out in Kilifi by the Kenya Medical Research Centre and the Wellcome Trust Programme, established that children with sickle cell anaemia were at greater risk of getting pneumonia.
In what has been described as the biggest study of its kind in Africa, the researchers screened 40,000 admissions at Kilifi district hospital between 1998 and 2008.
They estimated that in Kilifi alone, up to a quarter of all child deaths may be attributable to sickle cell anaemia because of susceptibility to bacterial infections such as pneumonia and meningitis.
