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Pneumoni A Case Study

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INTRODUCTION
According to UNICEF 2012 data, Pneumonia is the single largest killer of children under age 5 worldwide and the leading infectious cause of childhood mortality. It also accounts for 17 per cent of all under-five deaths and killed 3,000 children a day in 2012 (1.1 million that year). Most of its victims were less than 2 years old. On the other hand, diarrhea is also ascribed a leading killer of children, which accounts for 9 per cent of all deaths among children under age 5 worldwide. This translated into 1,600 young children dying each day, or more than 580,000 children a year. The bulk of this mind blowing statistics occur among children less than 2 years of age living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Many studies have investigated …show more content…

In the first years of life, breastfeeding can reduce hospital admissions for acute lower respiratory infections. Exclusive breastfeeding also has a protective effect on hospitalization for pneumonia, especially in the first 3 months of life; also improves the outcome of acute diarrhea by reducing the number and volume of diarrheal …show more content…

This practice may be a contributing factor to the incidence of interest. Judging from literature, the effect of socio-economic status, maternal education and cultural practices has a huge impact on the general health outcome of children in developing countries. A huge percentage of death from diarrheal and pneumonia morbidity are often attributed to families with poor income as they are more likely to live in poor sanitary conditions; also inability to afford medical care13. It is also note-worthy that the protective effect of breast feeding within 24 hours after birth could be ascribed to high colostrum level which is fortified with a lot of immunologic components14. Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) which is a soluble pattern recognition receptor involved in the initiation of protective responses against selected pathogens, is a constituent of colostrum and very vital for the initial innate immune response in children; thus protective against morbidities11

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