Burden of Diarrheal Disease among under Five Children in Ethiopia, 2000-2016: Findings from the Global Health Estimates 2016

Introduction: Globally diarrhea among under five children remains one of the high burden diseases particularly in developing countries. Ethiopia is one of the sub-Saharan countries highly under five mortality due to diarrhea. Ethiopia has made remarkable progress in reducing child mortality over the last two decades. However, the under-5 mortality and morbidity rate related to diarrhea still magnificently a burden. Objective: This study aimed to assess the burden of diarrheal for under five children in terms of death and Disability-Adjusted Life Years lost (DALY) between 2000 and 2016. Patients and methods: The research used data from Global Health Estimate 2016; that originally collected the information through vital registration, verbal autopsy, surveys, reports, published scientific articles, Global Burden of Disease study (GBD 2016) and modeling. The magnitude of Diarrheal disease death was estimated 14,894 under five children in 2016. Death from diarrheal disease has also contributed to 38.4% (14894/38777) of deaths from infectious and parasitic diseases and 7.96% (14894/187,065) of the total death reported by the same year. Meanwhile, YLD, YLL and DALYs for under five children were 61,709 and 1408.4 thousand respectively in 2016. Themagnitudeof deaths due to diarrheal disease was declined by 76.7% from the2000’s record of 49,021 deaths within 16 years. In 2016, Mortality due to Diarrheal disease was highest among males. Of the 14,894 diarrheal disease related mortalities, more than 1405 deaths were among males. Conclusion: Even if the burden of diarrhea for under five mortality is sharply declining in Ethiopia; but, it still remained one of the public health problems and second leading cause of morbidity. Therefore, strengthening hand washing practice and accessing prevention program is important to eliminate death within the target period.