Deaths of children and adolescents in China due to infectious diseases were becoming rare prior to the covid-19 pandemic, according to a new study.

Quarantinable conditions with high death rates such as cholera and plague had effectively disappeared and many traditional and vaccine-preventable infectious diseases of childhood including diarrhea, measles and rubella became uncommon.

The research, led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and Peking University and published in the British Medical Journal, found the leading causes of death from infectious diseases in China had shifted markedly over a 10 year period from rabies and tuberculosis to HIV/AIDS.

But overall deaths from infectious diseases decreased steadily between 2008-2018 from 0.21 per 100,000 population in 2008 to 0.07 per 100,000 in 2017.

MCRI Professor George Patton said until now no study had reported on recent trends in infectious diseases among children and adolescents in China.

The new research analysed national surveillance data across 31 mainland Chinese provinces. It involved 5 million students aged six to 22 years, and involved 44 notifiable infectious diseases.

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Materials provided by Murdoch Childrens Research Institute. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.