LAHORE: Up to 50 per cent of samples from under-treatment children sent by the University of Child Health Sciences (UCHS) of Lahore to the National Institute of Health (NIH) of Islamabad tested positive for viral pneumonia, indicating a high prevalence of the disease in Punjab.

In the reports, it has been diagnosed that the kids brought to Lahore Children Hospital for treatment with chest infections were suffering from acute respiratory tract infection (ARI), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and influenza — the infections that led to severe pneumonia complications, often fatal.

The ARI is a respiratory tract disease evolving in fewer than 15 days, often turning into pneumonia, while the RSV is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. Infants and older adults are more likely to develop severe RSV and need hospitalization.

A senior official of Children Hospital of Lahore told Dawn that the reports released recently by the NIH confirmed the health and lives of a large number of children were at greater risk, particularly in the prevailing cold weather in Lahore and the rest of the province due to the severity of the viral infection.

The issue came to the limelight when caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi, during his visit to Children Hospital a week ago, found out eight out of 10 children in its emergency were suffering from pneumonia.

Most children under five years were brought with severe chest complications, and pneumonia has been the leading cause of death among children in Pakistan and globally.

In the related development, the caretaker Punjab government, three days ago, established a six-member body of senior medical experts to control the high prevalence of pneumonia in children, following the pattern of the dengue experts advisory group.

The health department has notified the ‘Pneumonia Experts Advisory Group’ on January 12 with the prime objective of regularly reviewing the data related to pediatric patients suffering from pneumonia/viral bacteria ARI.

According to the terms of references, the body will review the trends for infectivity and mortality for such diseases and furnish an advisory according to the disease trends regarding prevention and control of the disease to the competent authority for necessary action.

UCHS Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof Dr Masood Sadiq confirmed to Dawn that the pneumonia burden on children under five was estimated to be 40 to 50 percent in the reports issued by NIH.

“We had dispatched samples of 30 children brought with chest infections at Children Hospital Lahore,” Dr Sadiq said. He said that all the kids were under five years old, and NIH reports suggested that many of them were suffering from RSV, influenza virus, a common cause of pneumonia, and human para-influenza viruses, a group of infections commonly causing lower and upper respiratory illnesses in infants.

“If we further segregate the cases, infants under one year old are more vulnerable to pneumonia,” the VC said. The reasons were that most of them have been either unvaccinated or not on mother feed, he said. Similarly, he said, the children who were presented with co-morbidity were also largely exposed to the viral infection.

Prof Sadiq said that Lahore Children Hospital had also sent samples of 50 children in mid-2023 to the NIH of Islamabad, with nearly 40-50 per cent of them suffering from the same viral infection mentioned above. He said that the NIH of Islamabad was engaged for diagnosing this particular viral infection because the testing facility in question was not available in any institute in Punjab, including Lahore Children Hospital.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2024