718STUDY ON PREVALENCE OF ACUTE RESPIRATORY TRACT INFECTION - PNEUMONIA IN CHILDREN WITH LESS THAN FIVE YEARSIn children lying under the age of 5, acute respiratory tract infections are of main cause of death as reported in many earlier studies. It was estimated to be about 20-30% of overall child deaths with age less than 5 years. Also it is responsible for attacking illness in children in a year which shows its negative impact on child’s physiological growth. It has been reported in a study that about 6,30,000 children are known to face death every year in India due to these various types of Acute Respiratory Tract Infections (ARI). Among which Pneumonia is considered as the main culprit. It is clearly stated that by providing vaccination like measles and DPT vaccine, 25% of the ARI related deaths could be prevented. In a study on assessing the loss of regular human activities due to respiratory tract infection related problems included cough to be lead to 22 million days of missed school, 45 million days of bed ridden condition, and 20 million days of missed work in 1996. As represented in table 1, the total numbers of male children included in the population are of 196 and the female children stood at a number of 174 in total study population. Children lying under the age group of 0-1 year are of 142 among which 67 are male and 75 are of female. Children aging between 1 to 4 years included 150 among which 82 are male and 68 are female. Children aged between 4 to 5 years are 78 among which 47 are male and 31 are female. Thus, from the present study it can be concluded that illiteracy in parents, parenteral smoking habits, use of hazardous domestic fuels, nutritional imbalance might be the major cause for ARI in children of both rural and urban population of the study. Thus, higher steps are required for effective prevention of ARI in childrenthummala1229@gmail.comResearch922019Acute Respiratory Tract Infection,Pneumonia,Neonates,Upper Respiratory TractHarish Thummala,G.Mohan Kumar,Kishore Animi Reddy,Nirmal Ghodkar,K.ManiAssociate Professor, Department of Microbiology, RVS Institute of Medical Sciences, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India.,Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology, RVS Institute of Medical Sciences, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India.,Professor, RVS Institute of Medical Sciences, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India,Tutor, RVS Institute of Medical Sciences, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India,Tutor, RVS Institute of Medical Sciences, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India