What causes neonatal infection in the subcontinent?

In recent decades, overall child mortality in low-income countries has improved dramatically, but the same rate of improvement has not been seen in neonatal mortality: in South Asia, the proportion of all child deaths that occurred in the neonatal period rose from 45% in 1990 to 59% in 2017. The cause of most neonatal deaths is obvious—congenital anomalies, prematurity or birth asphyxia—but an estimated one-third of deaths appear to be due to infection. To tackle this problem we need to know what organisms are responsible. The difficulty is that in resource-poor settings, there are usually no facilities for microbiological diagnosis.

An important study conducted at five sites in deprived South Asian communities (four rural in Bangladesh and India, one urban in Pakistan) recruited over 60 000 pregnant women between 2011 and 2014 (ANISA study. Saha S et al. Lancet. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31127-9). After birth, each was visited at home up to...

from Archives of Disease in Childhood current issue https://ift.tt/2Oz5DTS