UK’s Global Health Initiatives Explores Child Malnourishment, Pneumonia in Developing Countries
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 1, 2015) — The University of Kentucky Global Health Initiative is hosting a lecture on the challenges that a malnourished child with pneumonia in developing countries poses to health care systems.
The lecture, titled “A Challenge to Health Systems: The Malnourished Child with Pneumonia in Developing Countries,” will take place from noon to 1 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, at the Chandler Hospital, Pavilion A Auditorium.
Pneumonia, an infection of the lungs, is the leading cause of death in children younger than 5 years of age worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lecturer Dr. George Fuchs said that more than 1.5 million young children die each year from pneumonia.
“Fifteen million cases per year in Southeast Asia are so severe that they require hospitalization with children with both pneumonia and malnutrition being the most vulnerable,” Fuchs said.
According to UNICEF, under nutrition weakens the immune system, putting children at higher risk of more severe, frequent and prolonged bouts of illness. This interaction between under nutrition and infection creates a potentially lethal cycle of worsening illness and deteriorating nutritional status.
“Several obstacles to caring for these children exist in developing countries including a shortage of hospitals and pediatric hospital beds as well as severe burdens for parents such as travel time, cost, distance-from-home, other household responsibilities and lost wages,” Fuchs said.
The lecture will describe the pneumonia-malnutrition synergy and research of a new model of care to reach these children.
Fuchs is a physician scientist with specialty training in pediatrics and sub-specialty training in pediatric infectious diseases, pediatric gastroenterology, and pediatric nutrition. Fuchs joined Louisiana State University’s School of Medicine in 1986, was a faculty member at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences from 2001-2015 and joined the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in 2015 as a professor in pediatrics. His area of expertise is nutrition, low birth weight, diarrheal disease, and infection including the therapeutic and preventive interactions between micronutrients and infectious disease (diarrheal disease, pneumonia), malnutrition, and low birth weight.
Global Health lectures are campus-wide events encouraging the UK community to foster the development of global health research locally and with partner institutions.
The Global Health Initiative of the University of Kentucky is focused on advancing research, educational programs and service learning for its faculty and students, with the goal of improving the health of people throughout the world and promoting health equity.
For more information on this event and others presented by the Global Health Initiative click here.
MEDIA CONTACT: Blair Hoover, (859) 257-6398; blair.hoover@uky.edu