With no necessary tools, including oxygen support, in most hospitals, the issue of childhood pneumonia -- which causes more than 24,000 preventable deaths of children under five in the country annually -- is getting little importance during the pandemic, experts said yesterday. 

To prevent premature deaths, there is need for multi-sectoral efforts to strengthen the country's health system and invest in low-cost local solutions, they said in an evidence sharing session with Health Reporters Forum (HRF), held at icddr,b in Dhaka, marking World Pneumonia Day.

It was jointly organised by Research for Decision Makers Activity of icddr,b and Data for Impact, with support from United States Agency for International Development.

Dr Ahmed Ehsanur Rahman, an associate scientist at icddr,b, discussed the pneumonia situation globally and in Bangladesh. Referring to Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2017, he said, "Only five percent of government health facilities in Bangladesh are prepared to properly treat pneumonia."

Besides, not even half of the health facilities had oxygen concentrator, while other oxygen sources were not available in one-third of the facilities under the study.

BDHS also found that only one-third of district hospitals had basic tools to measure oxygen saturation.

Referring to Bangladesh Health Facility Survey 2017, he said more than half of the children under five who die from pneumonia were not brought to hospital for treatment.

"When a hospital has lack of necessary tools to treat pneumonia, it is normal for parents to be discouraged to bring their child for treatment. Intervention is needed to ensure availability of tools in hospitals," Dr Ehsanur said.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), any healthcare setting needs to ensure 10 items -- including guidelines, trained staff and certain equipment and medicines -- for providing child curative care.

Prof Ruhul Amin, pulmonologist at the paediatrics department of Dhaka Shishu Hospital, said 18 percent of children under five die due to pneumonia.

To prevent such deaths, he stressed on ensuring nutrition of children by exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding; looking into environmental factors such as pollution; and timely treatment of children with respiratory distress.

Prof Samir Kumar Saha, executive director of Child Health Research Foundation, said, "We do not know the reason behind 50 percent of pneumonia cases. It is important to know this if we want to eliminate it, and we need combined efforts for this."

Dr Md Jobayer Chisti, senior scientist at icddr,b, stressed on having pulse oximetry devices in hospitals and investing on low-cost local innovations.

"The low-cost bubble CAP machine invented by icddr,b can help reduce such deaths by 75 percent. We are now piloting the device in two district hospitals in Kurigram and Narsingdi to know its feasibility," he informed.