Temporal trend of mortality from infectious respiratory diseases in childhood in Minas Gerais, Brazil, 2000-2020.

Main Results: From 2000 to 2020, there was a downward trend in mortality due to infectious respiratory disease in children living in Minas Gerais - even in 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Implications For Services: There was a reduction in child deaths due to respiratory infections; health services should be alerted as to the considerable presence of ill-defined or inconclusive codes (garbage codes) on death certificates.

Perspectives: It is necessary to maintain the effectiveness of health actions among the mother and child population and to improve the records held on the Mortality Information System, in order to enable better monitoring of mortality as well as to enable analytical studies to be conducted.