Manisha Jha BIJNOR: Travelling about 250 kilometres away from the Capital into the dusty rural heartland of Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh one comes face-to-face with the grim reality of rural health infrastructure and of its missed opportunities in checking diseases that are quietly wiping out a sizeable population of children under five years. One such disease is pneumonia which, according to estimates, annually accounts for the death of over four lakh children. According to WHO, in India, at least 50 per cent of pneumonia deaths of children under five years of age are caused by two bacteria, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and pneumococcus. Bijnor paediatrician Dr Vipin M. Vashishtha said: