Niger J Paed 2013; 40 (4): 438

Letter to the Editor

Mothers and childhood pneumonia? (Niger J Paed 2013; 40(1): 24-29).

Dear Editor-in-Chief,

interpretation of data represent an important function

even if the authors did not participate in the conceptuali-

zation of the research work.

I have a few comments on the article "Mothers and

childhood pneumonia: what should the focus of public

campaigns be?"(Niger J Paed 2013; 40(1): 24-29).

We agree with the reader that antibiotic use in pneumo-

nia benefits only the child with bacterial pneumonia.

However for public campaign as part of strategies to

reduce deaths from pneumonia administration of antibi-

otics to children with pneumonia is advocated. This is

the message that is passed to healthcare workers who

provide care for children with pneumonia, the majority

of whom are not paediatricians; this is the message in

the case management of pneumonia by the World Health

Organization (the Integrated Management of Childhood

Illnesses)

Twelve authors from different institutions are listed but

only three are truly accounted for under authors' contri-

bution. "All authors except ECI and BMR conceived the

study” needs to be expatiated.

It is important to clarify: 1) that administration of antibi-

otic is beneficial only in children with bacterial pneumo-

nia, 2) cold refers to cold weather and not upper respira-

tory tract infection.

As highlighted by the reader the cold in the article refers

to cold air or cold weather and not upper respiratory

tract infections. This distinction is evident in all aspects

of the article and does not create room for ambiguity.

Muri B Abdurrahman

Email : pediatricgroup@sympatico.ca

Reference

We acknowledge the comments raised by one of the

readers of the Journal, namely that only three of the

listed authors truly qualified as authors; that antibiotics

administration is only beneficial in children with bacte-

rial pneumonia and that cold refers to cold weather and

not to upper respiratory tract infections.

We wish to refer the reader to the conditions for author-

ship as defined by the International Committee of Medi-

cal Editors which states that ‘Authorship credit should

be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception

and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpre-

tation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it criti-

cally for important intellectual content; and 3) final ap-

proval of the version to be published. Authors should

meet conditions 1, 2, and 3’. The operational word in the

first criterion is ‘or’. Data collection or analysis and

1. Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted

to Biomedical Journals: Ethical Considerations in

the Conduct and Reporting of Research: Authorship

and Contributorship. Accessed at http://

www.icmje.org/ethical on 12th June, 2013.

2. WHO. Integrated management of childhood illness

chart booklet. 2005.

3. WHO. Management of the child with a serious in-

fection or severe malnutrition. Guidelines for care at

first-referral level in developing countries. WHO:

Geneva 2000.

Ekanem Ekure

Email: ekaekure@hotmail.com