More than 10 million children die London (AP) — each year, before they are 5 years old. 99 Percent of them lived in poverty, the main cause of malnutrition and disease. Two-thirds of children – about 7 million – could be saved with food and existing medication against diarrhea, malaria or pneumonia for comparatively little money. These data present 25 leading scientists from universities, the UN, the World Bank and aid agencies in an aufrüttelndem focus, which prints the journal “The Lancet” (vol. 361) in the next few weeks. You call on the Governments and UN organizations to to put the survival of children far to the top on their list of priorities. “The biggest killers of children today are diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria. «Like 1980», in the writes the Bellagio group. It includes experts from UN agencies, the World Bank, clinics and ministries. The greatest threats of children include contaminated drinking water and lack of breast milk, writes Robert Black of the Johns Hopkins School of public health in Baltimore (US State of Massachusetts). Dirty drinking water and poor sanitation particularly often led to diarrhea. Without the body’s defences and the energy from the milk the risk for diarrhea climb on the 7-fache, explained for pneumonia on 5 times, the researchers. And often the children were already weakened to the world, because even their mothers had not enough to eat. Particularly promising helps food aid include therefore for the mothers, so that they can breast-feed daughters and sons reported the team to Gareth Jones of the United Nations Children Fund in New York. Add prepared mosquito nets come with insecticide, to curb the spread of malaria. Also be comprehensive vaccination against measles and the supply of children malnourished and arid with quickly effective, restore hydrieren end drinks necessary. Help would also drugs against Rotaviruses, which cause severe diarrhoea, and zinc for the treatment of lung diseases. «We need not to wait for new active substances or new technologies new vaccines,» stressed Jones. It simply comes on to bring food and the already existing drugs to those affected. «We must implement what we know in actions.» Half of the victims dies alone in the six countries India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan, Congo and Ethiopia, it is said in “the Lancet”. Just 42 countries therefore together have 90 percent of all cases. Pneumonia and diarrhea are the most common causes of death. In the year 2000 – exact figures are available only for that period – a total of 10.8 million children were killed. The researchers of the Bellagio group put the annual costs of around a billion dollars (about 870 million euros) for vaccinations, four billion dollars (3.4 billion euros) for the treatment of childhood diseases, as well as $2.5 billion (2.1 billion euro) for the fight against malaria and their prevention. This around 7.5 billion (EUR 6.5 billion) seem to be much money, the researchers write. It contends however given the price of an aircraft carrier, which with $2 billion (€1.7 billion) record. Or the $17 billion (EUR 14.7 billion), issued in the United States and Europe together every year for the pet food.