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Global Child Flu

Global toll of childhood flu-related pneumonia revealed in study

Around 90 million children under five contract seasonal flu each year globally and about 20 million develop pneumonia because of it, new research shows.

Flu-related pneumonia claims as many as 111,500 young lives worldwide and results in about 1 million children being admitted to hospital, according to the study.

Seasonal flu-related pneumonia accounts for one in eight cases of all child pneumonia worldwide, researchers say and 99% of these deaths occur in the developing world.

Researchers believe the estimates should inform public health policy and vaccine strategy, especially in developing countries.

The study

The study is the first of its kind to provide global estimates of seasonal flu and the resulting burden of pneumonia in young children. In 2008, between 28,000 - 111,500 children under five died because of flu-related pneumonia, according to Dr Harish Nair, of the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Population Health Sciences, who led the study.

Current rates for pneumonia illness and death could not be fully accounted for by common bacterial causes linked to childhood cases of the disease and so they examined the role of viruses. These include influenza virus, which is associated with a large, but unknown number of hospital admissions in young children globally and is preventable by vaccination.

The authors formed an international Influenza Study Group to supplement their literature review owing to a lack of data for flu-related pneumonia incidence and mortality from developing countries. They reviewed data from high-income and developing countries and found 43 suitable studies with data for around eight million children.

Flu is the second most common infection identified in children with pneumonia and contributes substantially to the burden of hospitalisation and mortality in young children. Our report should also help inform donor agencies in assigning funding priorities for novel vaccine development and implementation or other influenza prevention strategies.

Dr Harish Nair

PhD student at the Centre for Population Health Sciences

The article is published online in the Lancet ahead of World Pneumonia Day, November 12.

Dr Nair also features in this week's Lancet podcast and speaks about paper. To listen/download please go to:

This article was published on Dec 13, 2011


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