title: Pattern of cause-specific childhood mortality in a malaria endemic area of Burkina Faso.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Reliable mortality data are a prerequisite for planning health interventions, yet such data are often not available in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Demographic surveillance systems (DSS) implementing the verbal autopsy (VA) method are the only possibility to observe cause-specific mortality of a population on a longitudinal basis in many countries.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper reports all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates in children under the age of five years from 1999 until 2003 in a malaria holoendemic area of north-western Burkina Faso. The DSS of the Nouna Health Research Centre, in which VA data were analysed, covers a rural population of about 30,000 (41 villages) and an urban population of about 25,000 (Nouna town).
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 1,544 deaths were analysed, 87 (6%), 225 (14%), 317 (21%) and 915 (59%) of which occurred in the periods < 1 month, 1-5 months, 6-11 months and 1-4 years respectively. All cause mortality rates of children under five years were higher in the rural than the urban area (34 vs 24 per 1,000 person-years) and in the rainy than the dry season (35 vs 29 per 1,000 person-years). Malaria was the most frequent diagnosis (42%) with peak mortality rates in infants aged 6-11 months.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Malaria is the most important cause of death in this remote area of SSA, even considering the low specificity of malaria diagnosis in young children. Strengthening the existing malaria control tools is of prime importance to reduce the high childhood mortality in the endemic areas of SSA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Institute for Tropical Hygiene and Public Health, University of Heidelberg, Germany. ghammer@uni-mainz.de
authors.forename: Gaël P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Hammer
authors.forename: Florent
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Somé
authors.forename: Olaf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Gisela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kynast-Wolf
authors.forename: Bocar
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kouyaté
authors.forename: Heiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Becher
mesh_terms: D017677:Age Distribution; D002050:Burkina Faso / Q000453:epidemiology; D002423:Cause of Death; D046688:Child Mortality; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003906:Developing Countries; D019353:Endemic Diseases; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008288:Malaria / Q000401:mortality*; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012621:Seasons