Most deaths in children under 5 from preventable infectious causes, study suggests

May 11 2012

"Most deaths of young children around the world are from mainly preventable infectious causes," according to a study published in the Lancet on Friday, BBC News reports. A team led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health looked at mortality figures from 2010 and "found two-thirds of the 7.6 million children who died before their fifth birthday did so due to infectious causes -- and pneumonia was found to be the leading cause of death," the news service writes. "They found child deaths had fallen by two million (26 percent) since 2000, and there have been significant reductions in leading causes of death including diarrhea and measles -- as well as pneumonia," BBC notes (5/11). However, the authors "caution the decline is not sufficient enough" to achieve the fourth Millennium Development Goal, "which seeks to reduce child mortality by two-thirds in 2015," a Johns Hopkins press release writes (5/10).