‘Two birds, one stone’ approach — Integrated action plan for pneumonia and diarrhea

As per the recently released Pneumonia and Diarrhea Report 2014 [1], every 20 seconds a young child under the age of five years succumbs to either of the two major but preventable diseases – pneumonia and diarrhea. Pneumonia contributed to 15% and diarrhea to 9% of the 6.3 million under-five mortality globally in 2013 [1]. Unfortunately, India has the maximum burden of these two diseases in the world.