Dataset Information

Adult and child malaria mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey.

ABSTRACT: National malaria death rates are difficult to assess because reliably diagnosed malaria is likely to be cured, and deaths in the community from undiagnosed malaria could be misattributed in retrospective enquiries to other febrile causes of death, or vice-versa. We aimed to estimate plausible ranges of malaria mortality in India, the most populous country where the disease remains common.Full-time non-medical field workers interviewed families or other respondents about each of 122,000 deaths during 2001-03 in 6671 randomly selected areas of India, obtaining a half-page narrative plus answers to specific questions about the severity and course of any fevers. Each field report was sent to two of 130 trained physicians, who independently coded underlying causes, with discrepancies resolved either via anonymous reconciliation or adjudication.Of all coded deaths at ages 1 month to 70 years, 2681 (3·6%) of 75,342 were attributed to malaria. Of these, 2419 (90%) were in rural areas and 2311 (86%) were not in any health-care facility. Death rates attributed to malaria correlated geographically with local malaria transmission ratesderived independently from the Indian malaria control programme. The adjudicated results show 205,000 malaria deaths per year in India before age 70 years (55,000 in early childhood, 30,000 at ages 5-14 years, 120,000 at ages 15-69 years); 1·8% cumulative probability of death from malaria before age 70 years. Plausible lower and upper bounds (on the basis of only the initial coding) were 125,000-277,000. Malaria accounted for a substantial minority of about 1·3 million unattended rural fever deaths attributed to infectious diseases in people younger than 70 years.Despite uncertainty as to which unattended febrile deaths are from malaria, even the lower bound greatly exceeds the WHO estimate of only 15,000 malaria deaths per year in India (5000 early childhood, 10?000 thereafter). This low estimate should be reconsidered, as should the low WHO estimate of adult malaria deaths worldwide.US National Institutes of Health, Canadian Institute of Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute.

SUBMITTER: Dhingra N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3021416 | biostudies-other | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Adult and child malaria mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey.

Dhingra Neeraj N Jha Prabhat P Sharma Vinod P VP Cohen Alan A AA Jotkar Raju M RM Rodriguez Peter S PS Bassani Diego G DG Suraweera Wilson W Laxminarayan Ramanan R Peto Richard R

Lancet (London, England) 20101020 9754

<h4>Background</h4>National malaria death rates are difficult to assess because reliably diagnosed malaria is likely to be cured, and deaths in the community from undiagnosed malaria could be misattributed in retrospective enquiries to other febrile causes of death, or vice-versa. We aimed to estimate plausible ranges of malaria mortality in India, the most populous country where the disease remains common.<h4>Methods</h4>Full-time non-medical field workers interviewed families or other responde ...[more]

PMID: 20970179

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Project description:BackgroundMore than 2·3 million children died in India in 2005; however, the major causes of death have not been measured in the country. We investigated the causes of neonatal and child mortality in India and their differences by sex and region.MethodsThe Registrar General of India surveyed all deaths occurring in 2001-03 in 1·1 million nationally representative homes. Field staff interviewed household members and completed standard questions about events that preceded the death. Two of 130 physicians then independently assigned a cause to each death. Cause-specific mortality rates for 2005 were calculated nationally and for the six regions by combining the recorded proportions for each cause in the neonatal deaths and deaths at ages 1-59 months in the study with population and death totals from the United Nations.FindingsThere were 10,892 deaths in neonates and 12,260 in children aged 1-59 months in the study. When these details were projected nationally, three causes accounted for 78% (0·79 million of 1·01 million) of all neonatal deaths: prematurity and low birthweight (0·33 million, 99% CI 0·31 million to 0·35 million), neonatal infections (0·27 million, 0·25 million to 0·29 million), and birth asphyxia and birth trauma (0·19 million, 0·18 million to 0·21 million). Two causes accounted for 50% (0·67 million of 1·34 million) of all deaths at 1-59 months: pneumonia (0·37 million, 0·35 million to 0·39 million) and diarrhoeal diseases (0·30 million, 0·28 million to 0·32 million). In children aged 1-59 months, girls in central India had a five-times higher mortality rate (per 1000 livebirths) from pneumonia (20·9, 19·4-22·6) than did boys in south India (4·1, 3·0-5·6) and four-times higher mortality rate from diarrhoeal disease (17·7, 16·2-19·3) than did boys in west India (4·1, 3·0-5·5).InterpretationFive avoidable causes accounted for nearly 1·5 million child deaths in India in 2005, with substantial differences between regions and sexes. Expanded neonatal and intrapartum care, case management of diarrhoea and pneumonia, and addition of new vaccines to immunisation programmes could substantially reduce child deaths in India.FundingUS National Institutes of Health, International Development Research Centre, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, and US Fund for UNICEF.

Project description:BackgroundSierra Leone's child and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world. However, little is known about the causes of premature mortality in the country. To rectify this, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation of Sierra Leone launched the Sierra Leone Sample Registration System (SL-SRS) of births and deaths. Here, we report cause-specific mortality from the first SL-SRS round, representing deaths from 2018 to 2020.MethodsThe Countrywide Mortality Surveillance for Action platform established the SL-SRS, which involved conducting electronic verbal autopsies in 678 randomly selected villages and urban blocks throughout the country. 61 surveyors, in teams of four or five, enrolled people and ascertained deaths of individuals younger than 70 years in 2019-20, capturing verbal autopsies on deaths from 2018 to 2020. Centrally, two trained physicians independently assigned causes of death according to the International Classification of Diseases (tenth edition). SL-SRS death proportions were applied to 5-year mortality averages from the UN World Population Prospects (2019) to derive cause-specific death totals and risks of death nationally and in four Sierra Leone regions, with comparisons made with the Western region where Freetown, the capital, is located. We compared SL-SRS results with the cause-specific mortality estimates for Sierra Leone in the 2019 WHO Global Health Estimates.FindingsBetween Sept 1, 2019, and Dec 15, 2020, we enrolled 343 000 people and ascertained 8374 deaths of individuals younger than 70 years. Malaria was the leading cause of death in children and adults, nationally and in each region, representing 22% of deaths under age 70 years in 2020. Other infectious diseases accounted for an additional 16% of deaths. Overall maternal mortality ratio was 510 deaths per 100 000 livebirths (95% CI 483-538), and neonatal mortality rate was 31·1 deaths per 1000 livebirths (95% CI 30·4-31·8), both among the highest rates in the world. Haemorrhage was the major cause of maternal mortality and birth asphyxia or trauma was the major cause of neonatal mortality. Excess deaths were not detected in the months of 2020 corresponding to the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Half of the deaths occurred in rural areas and at home. If the Northern, Eastern, and Southern regions of Sierra Leone had the lower death rates observed in the Western region, about 20 000 deaths (just over a quarter of national total deaths in people younger than 70 years) would have been avoided. WHO model-based data vastly underestimated malaria deaths and some specific causes of injury deaths, and substantially overestimated maternal mortality.InterpretationOver 60% of individuals in Sierra Leone die prematurely, before age 70 years, most from preventable or treatable causes. Nationally representative mortality surveys such as the SL-SRS are of high value in providing reliable cause-of-death information to set public health priorities and target interventions in low-income countries.FundingBill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Program.

Project description:BackgroundWHO estimates that about 170,000 deaths by suicide occur in India every year, but few epidemiological studies of suicide have been done in the country. We aimed to quantify suicide mortality in India in 2010.MethodsThe Registrar General of India implemented a nationally representative mortality survey to determine the cause of deaths occurring between 2001 and 2003 in 1·1 million homes in 6671 small areas chosen randomly from all parts of India. As part of this survey, fieldworkers obtained information about cause of death and risk factors for suicide from close associates or relatives of the deceased individual. Two of 140 trained physicians were randomly allocated (stratified only by their ability to read the local language in which each survey was done) to independently and anonymously assign a cause to each death on the basis of electronic field reports. We then applied the age-specific and sex-specific proportion of suicide deaths in this survey to the 2010 UN estimates of absolute numbers of deaths in India to estimate the number of suicide deaths in India in 2010.FindingsAbout 3% of the surveyed deaths (2684 of 95,335) in individuals aged 15 years or older were due to suicide, corresponding to about 187,000 suicide deaths in India in 2010 at these ages (115,000 men and 72,000 women; age-standardised rates per 100,000 people aged 15 years or older of 26·3 for men and 17·5 for women). For suicide deaths at ages 15 years or older, 40% of suicide deaths in men (45,100 of 114,800) and 56% of suicide deaths in women (40,500 of 72,100) occurred at ages 15-29 years. A 15-year-old individual in India had a cumulative risk of about 1·3% of dying before the age of 80 years by suicide; men had a higher risk (1·7%) than did women (1·0%), with especially high risks in south India (3·5% in men and 1·8% in women). About half of suicide deaths were due to poisoning (mainly ingestions of pesticides).InterpretationSuicide death rates in India are among the highest in the world. A large proportion of adult suicide deaths occur between the ages of 15 years and 29 years, especially in women. Public health interventions such as restrictions in access to pesticides might prevent many suicide deaths in India.FundingUS National Institutes of Health.

Project description:BackgroundDocumentation of the demographic and geographical details of changes in cause-specific neonatal (younger than 1 month) and 1-59-month mortality in India can guide further progress in reduction of child mortality. In this study we report the changes in cause-specific child mortality between 2000 and 2015 in India.MethodsSince 2001, the Registrar General of India has implemented the Million Death Study (MDS) in 1·3 million homes in more than 7000 randomly selected areas of India. About 900 non-medical surveyors do structured verbal autopsies for deaths recorded in these homes. Each field report is assigned randomly to two of 404 trained physicians to classify the cause of death, with a standard process for resolution of disagreements. We combined the proportions of child deaths according to the MDS for 2001-13 with annual UN estimates of national births and deaths (partitioned across India's states and rural or urban areas) for 2000-15. We calculated the annual percentage change in sex-specific and cause-specific mortality between 2000 and 2015 for neonates and 1-59-month-old children.FindingsThe MDS captured 52 252 deaths in neonates and 42 057 deaths at 1-59 months. Examining specific causes, the neonatal mortality rate from infection fell by 66% from 11·9 per 1000 livebirths in 2000 to 4·0 per 1000 livebirths in 2015 and the rate from birth asphyxia or trauma fell by 76% from 9·0 per 1000 livebirths in 2000 to 2·2 per 1000 livebirths in 2015. At 1-59 months, the mortality rate from pneumonia fell by 63% from 11·2 per 1000 livebirths in 2000 to 4·2 per 1000 livebirths in 2015 and the rate from diarrhoea fell by 66% from 9·4 per 1000 livebirths in 2000 to 3·2 per 1000 livebirths in 2015 (with narrowing girl-boy gaps). The neonatal tetanus mortality rate fell from 1·6 per 1000 livebirths in 2000 to less than 0·1 per 1000 livebirths in 2015 and the 1-59-month measles mortality rate fell from 3·3 per 1000 livebirths in 2000 to 0·3 per 1000 livebirths in 2015. By contrast, mortality rates for prematurity or low birthweight rose from 12·3 per 1000 livebirths in 2000 to 14·3 per 1000 livebirths in 2015, driven mostly by increases in term births with low birthweight in poorer states and rural areas. 29 million cumulative child deaths occurred from 2000 to 2015. The average annual decline in mortality rates from 2000 to 2015 was 3·3% for neonates and 5·4% for children aged 1-59 months. Annual declines from 2005 to 2015 (3·4% decline for neonatal mortality and 5·9% decline in 1-59-month mortality) were faster than were annual declines from 2000 to 2005 (3·2% decline for neonatal mortality and 4·5% decline in 1-59-month mortality). These faster declines indicate that India avoided about 1 million child deaths compared with continuation of the 2000-05 declines.InterpretationTo meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals for child mortality, India will need to maintain the current trajectory of 1-59-month mortality and accelerate declines in neonatal mortality (to >5% annually) from 2015 onwards. Continued progress in reduction of child mortality due to pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, and measles at 1-59 months is feasible. Additional attention to low birthweight is required.FundingNational Institutes of Health, Disease Control Priorities Network, Maternal and Child Epidemiology Estimation Group, and University of Toronto.

Dataset Information

Adult and child malaria mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey.

Publications

Adult and child malaria mortality in India: a nationally representative mortality survey.

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