With AIDS and malaria grabbing most of the attention, diarrhoea and pneumonia, even though they kill an estimated 3.5-million children under-5 every year on a global scale, they no longer make the headlines, anymore.

Dr. Tesfaye Shiferaw, a UNICEF official in Africa says, as donor or partnership mechanisms shift their emphasis to HIV, AIDS and other issues, these age-old traditional killers are neglected, and those who are dying are the children of the poor.

A report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says, about $3.5-billion was spent globally on maternal, newborn and child health in 2006, while UNAIDS reports nearly $9-billion devoted to HIV and AIDS in the same year.

In contrast to AIDS annual count of 2% children dying of the disease, the biggest killer of children under-5 is pneumonia, which claims over
2-million lives annually or about 20% of all child deaths.

Pneumonia is treatable with inexpensive antibiotics, if caught early, yet, UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate less than 20% of receive medication for the condition.

A vaccine for pneumonia available since 2000 has yet to reach numerous children in developing countries, though GAVI Alliance, a global partnership is hopeful of introducing it to 42-countries by 2015.

Every year, 1.5-million children, most of them under-2 die from diarrhoeal diseases, such as, cholera and rotavirus, falling sick after drinking dirty water, dying from dehydration, weakened immune systems and malnutrition.

Last year, 4,000 people died in Zimbabwe in what was the worst cholera outbreak to hit Africa in 15-years, and recently the country reporting new cases of the waterborne diseases, expects more during the rainy season when the sewers will overflow.

Rotavirus, the topmost cause of severe diarrhoea accounting for over half a million children dying from it every year, is a highly contagious disease spread through contaminated hands and surfaces. While, children in US and Europe, even though they have access to clean water and hygiene receive the vaccine routinely every year, GAVI Alliance is hoping to get it to 44- developing countries by 2015.

Death due to diarrhoeal diseases is often preventable by replacing lost fluids in children, warding off dehydration by giving them a simple recipe of salt and sugar mixed with clean water. According to a WHO and UNICEF report released last month, 60% of children suffering from diarrhoea never receive it.