Childhood deaths due to pneumonia: a novel causal analysis of aetiology

Pneumonia is a leading cause of child mortality, and the single largest cause of under-5 mortality outside the neonatal period. In 2019, there were 45 million global episodes of pneumonia in children younger than 5 years,1 and more than 700 000 under-5 deaths due to pneumonia.1 However, the incidence of childhood pneumonia and subsequent childhood deaths are unequally distributed globally: in sub-Saharan Africa, pneumonia incidence is more than double that of high-income countries, and carries a 60-times higher mortality rate.