A child an hour: burden of injury deaths among children under 5 in Pakistan
Razzak, J.A.; Khan, U.R.; Zia, N.; Azam, I.
Archives of Disease in Childhood 98(11): 867-871
2013
ISSN/ISBN: 1468-2044 PMID: 23956258 DOI: 10.1136/archdischild-2013-303654Document Number: 576608
Globally, more than 875 000 children under the age of 18 die due to injury every year. The rate of child injury death is 3.4 times higher in low-income and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. To study injury mortality burden among children under the age of 5 in Pakistan. Demographic and Health Survey in Pakistan was conducted from September 2006 until February 2007. It included 95 000 households, out of which 3232 households had death of a child under the age of 5 from January 2005 onwards. The Child Verbal Autopsy Questionnaire (CVAQ) was administered to these households with a response rate of 96%. For age group 0-5 years, injury was the sixth leading cause of death and was responsible for 2.5% of all deaths (n=73). For age group 1-5 years, injury was found to be the third leading cause of death (11%) after diarrhoea (18%) and pneumonia (17%). The overall under fives mortality rate due to injury was estimated at 39.5 per 100 000 per year in Pakistan. Drowning (22%), road traffic injuries (12%), burns (11%) and falls (10%) were the most common types of injury. The mortality rate was twice as high in rural areas (32 per 100 000; 95% CI 18 to 45), compared to the urban areas (15 per 100 000; 95% CI 0.3 to 29). Injury is the third leading cause of deaths among children 1-5 in Pakistan. The burden is twice as high in rural areas.