The mortality rate for pneumonia among children under five remains high in the country because parents don't know how to quickly spot the killer disease, an expert says.
Pediatrician Mardjanis Said said that about 300 children under five died of pneumonia here every day; with it accounting for 41 out of every 1,000 infant deaths.
Mardjanis presented his findings during his inauguration as a University of Indonesia professor in Jakarta last week.
"The high mortality rate is really worrying. Few people here know about pneumonia symptoms and how the disease affects people, children in particular," he said. "Infection from bacteria, which causes most diseases including pneumonia, is relatively high in the country."
Indonesia, like many other developing countries, faces problems of malnutrition, public hygiene and poverty, Mardjanis said. The combination of poor infrastructure and poverty meant common bacterial infections could be dangerous, particularly among low-income families, he said.
According to the World Health Organization, pneumonia, which kills around two million children in the world each year, caused 70 percent of the fatalities in developing countries in Africa and Southeast Asia.
A 2005 WHO report concluded the deaths of 19 percent of children under five were caused by pneumonia, followed by diarrheal infections (17 percent), malaria (8 percent) and measles (4 percent).
As a common secondary infection, children with illnesses such as measles and diphtheria can also contract pneumonia easily.
Mardjanis said while some vaccines could prevent the disease, "they are too expensive for most people" and the government had yet to include pneumonia vaccinations in its national health program.
"Currently, the best way to prevent the disease is recognizing the early symptoms of pneumonia," he said. "Children breathing faster than usual is key symptom." The pace of breathing among children differs, depending on their age, he said.
Infants under two months normally breathe around 50 times a minute; children aged between two months and a year around 40 times; and children above a year less than 40 times a minute. "Although (fast breathing) could indicate other respiratory diseases, 80 percent of these (symptoms in such) cases lead to pneumonia," Mardjanis said.