Recent Advances in Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Despite being largely preventable and treatable, infectious diseases remain leading causes of morbidity and mortality in children and adolescents, especially in low and middle-income countries. Globally, in 2020, 5.0 million children under 5 years of age died; infectious diseases, including pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were responsible for over 30% of global deaths among these children. Further, according to the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study, 6 infectious diseases were among the top 10 causes of the disability adjusted life years (DALYs) in children younger than 10 years—and 11 infectious diseases were among the top 20 causes of DALYs--including lower respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, malaria, meningitis, pertussis, congenital syphilis, measles, TB, HIV, invasive non-typhoidal salmonella, and typhoid and paratyphoid.

Although progress has been made, there still exist considerable knowledge gaps and a continuing need for specific approaches, diagnostic tools and antimicrobial drugs and vaccines tailored to pediatric patients. Recent events such as the COVID pandemic, as well as the threat of other emerging diseases, such as monkey pox and enterovirus D68, underline the need to intensify and augment attention, resources and investment focused on combatting infectious diseases in children and adolescents.

This Special Issue of Pathogens highlights recent advances in fundamental and applied research and program implementation science related to key infectious diseases in children, with a focus on epidemiology and current approaches and innovations for effective diagnosis, treatment and prevention. These efforts provide the basis for enhancing our capabilities to end childhood illness and death from infectious diseases.

Dr. Susan A. Maloney
Dr. Maria Gutierrez
Guest Editors

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