The most likely cause of an increase in childhood deaths is malaria, which kills more than 400,000 children a year and can cause seizures. But there was no report of the spiking fevers that characterize malaria. Lack of fever also made pneumonia, the most common cause of childhood death, less likely. The absence of diarrhea and dehydration ruled out cholera and other intestinal infections, the third most common cause of death.