Kenya needs approximately Sh13.4 billion in the next two years to test and treat children below five years who have been diagnosed with pneumonia.
The money will also cater for the manufacture and rolling out of new child friendly medicines that are to be the first line of treatment in the children.
The new tablets, used in other Asian countries with high pneumonia deaths, have a higher dose than the intravenous injections babies have been getting.
"Use of optimum treatments like oral antibiotics, injectable antibiotics and oxygen for the management of severe pneumonia should be scaled up to reach all sick children and prevent unnecessary deaths," Health CS Cleopa Mailu said.
Mailu
asked stakeholders to work together to reduce newborn deaths and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
"Investing in newborn, child and adolescent health services is a game changer," he said during the launch of Amoxycillin Dispersible tablets on Monday.
"Strategic partnerships by the public and private sector and other stakeholders, in dealing with pneumonia in children under five,
is crucial to protecting, promoting and scaling the uptake of recommended interventions."
Mohammed Sheikh, head of
the family health unit in the ministry, noted counties play a critical role in strengthening the management of sick children, in line with national standards and guidelines.
"Since we did not meet millennium development goals, we must know resources alone cannot reduce these deaths. We need to partner with stakeholders to win the fight.," Mohammed said.
Close to 68,000 babies do not celebrate their fifth birthdays because they die of pneumonia and malaria.
The new child friendly drug is a step forward for Kenya but paediatrician Ambrose Agweyu said the country needs to invest not only in medication but also in hospital equipment.
Agweyu, who is also
an epidemiologist, noted the pulse-oximetry machine accurately detects oxygen saturation.