London, Mar 27 (ANI): A new study claims that pneumonia is the leading cause of death amongst Chinese children.

The condition accounts for 17 per cent of deaths in under-5s, according to the study.

But the number of children in China who die before reaching the age of five has dropped by 70 per cent since 1990 - from 6.5 per cent of live births to 1.9 per cent.

The research, published in the Lancet journal, was led by the University of Edinburgh.

Harry Campbell, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, said: "Within international health community, China has been a "black box" for the past several decades regarding the information on health problems of its large population, particularly for children and infants. We welcome their immense efforts in recent years to digitalize their health research reports produced during the 20th century by Chinese researchers. We have now learned that health research conducted in China has been of a very high quality. Our study will also bring attention to some neglected causes of child death, such as accidents and congenital abnormalities, on which we had hardly any information from other low and middle income countries." (ANI)