title: Diarrhea, pneumonia, and infectious disease mortality in children aged 5 to 14 years in India.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Little is known about the causes of death in children in India after age five years. The objective of this study is to provide the first ever direct national and sub-national estimates of infectious disease mortality in Indian children aged 5 to 14 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  A verbal autopsy based assessment of 3 855 deaths is children aged 5 to 14 years from a nationally representative survey of deaths occurring in 2001-03 in 1.1 million homes in India.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Infectious diseases accounted for 58% of all deaths among children aged 5 to 14 years. About 18% of deaths were due to diarrheal diseases, 10% due to pneumonia, 8% due to central nervous system infections, 4% due to measles, and 12% due to other infectious diseases. Nationally, in 2005 about 59 000 and 34 000 children aged 5 to 14 years died from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, corresponding to mortality of 24.1 and 13.9 per 100 000 respectively. Mortality was nearly 50% higher in girls than in boys for both diarrheal diseases and pneumonia.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Approximately 60% of all deaths in this age group are due to infectious diseases and nearly half of these deaths are due to diarrheal diseases and pneumonia. Mortality in this age group from infectious diseases, and diarrhea in particular, is much higher than previously estimated.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Global Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael's Hospital, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. shaun.morris@utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Shaun K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Morris
authors.forename: Diego G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Bassani
authors.forename: Shally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Awasthi
authors.forename: Rajesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shet
authors.forename: Wilson
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Suraweera
authors.forename: Prabhat
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jha
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality*; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality*