Global deaths from diarrhoea of children aged less than 5 years were estimated at 1.87 million (95% confidence interval, CI: 1.56-2.19), approximately 19% of total child deaths. World Health Organization (WHO) African and South-East Asia Regions combined contain 78% (1.46 million) of all diarrhoea deaths occurring among children in the developing world; 73% of these deaths are concentrated in just 15 developing countries. These are the findings of a new study [1] estimating diarrhoea mortality at country, regional and global level by employing the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) standard. The “proportional mortality model” used in the study did not include potentially important variables such as coverage of oral rehydration therapy, access to clean water, and health system indicators, since these were only available for a very limited number of studies at site level. Planning and evaluation of interventions to control diarrhoea deaths and to reduce under-5 mortality is obstructed by the lack of a system that regularly generates cause-of-death information. The methods used here provide country-level estimates that constitute alternative information for planning in settings without adequate data, the group concludes.

The Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) was established in 2001 as an independent group of technical experts jointly coordinated by WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

[1] Boschi-Pinto, C., Velebit, L. and Shibuya, K. (2008). Estimating child mortality due to diarrhoea in developing countries. Bulletin of the World Health Organization ; vol. 86, no. 9 ; p. 710-717. DOI:10.2471/BLT.07.050054

Contact: Cynthia Boschi-Pinto, Child and Adolescent Health, WHO, Switzerland, pintoc@who.int

Tags: monitoring & evaluation, water-related diseases