U.S. scientists said treating children with pneumonia at home is
as safe and effective as hospital care, according to U.S. media
reports Friday.
Pneumonia is one of the world's leading child killers, killing 2
million children under the age of 5 each year worldwide, said the
researchers from Boston University School of Public Health in their
report released in the Jan. 5 issue of The Lancet.
However, oral antibiotics works just as well as treating them
with intravenous drugs at a hospital as advised by the World Health
Organization, researchers said.
"Severe in pneumonia in children can be safely and successfully
treated at home versus the current standard of care, which is
hospitalization," said lead researcher Dr. Donald Thea, a professor
of international health at Boston University School of Public
Health.
The researchers studied 2,037 children aged 3 to 59 months at
seven sites in Pakistan.
About half the children received amoxicillin syrup and were sent
home, and the others received intravenous antibiotics in the
hospital, said the report.
Researchers found that 87 children failed to improve in the
hospital by the day six of treatment, compared with 77 in the
home-based group. Overall, five children died, four of them in the
hospital and one at home.
Thea said he hopes that the World Health Organization (WHO) will
change its guidelines for the treatment of pneumonia.
The ultimate goal of this effort is to train local health
workers in developing countries to diagnose and treat pneumonia in
the community, Thea said. "Hopefully, this will make major inroads
and mitigate some of the deaths," he added.
(Agencies via Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2008)