Call for revolution in public health to prevent 10 million child deaths every year

THE LANCET is joining leading public-health scientists and international agencies in calling for a revolution in strategies for child health to tackle a global disaster: the deaths of over 10 million children under five years of age every year.

Five articles to be published in THE LANCET starting June 28 will highlight key priorities for global child health if the millennium goal of a two-thirds reduction in child deaths by 2015 is to be achieved. The series provides new estimates on the number of lives that could be saved with the effective implementation of known interventions to tackle the main childhood killers such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria. The series will also outline how a revolution in the management of global child health is urgently needed to put child survival issues at the top of the global public-health agenda.

The US media briefing will be hosted by THE LANCET's North American Editor, Dr Michael McCarthy, with a keynote presentation from series author Professor Robert Black from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. There will also be contributions from key agencies including USAID, UNICEF, World Bank, The Gates Foundation, WHO, and the U.S. Coalition for Child Survival.

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The session will complement a UK media briefing being held on the same day in London hosted by Lancet Editor Dr Richard Horton and the series co-ordinators from WHO, the University of Pelotas, Brazil, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

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