Each year, on 12th of November, World Pneumonia Day highlights the continuing and urgent need to raise awareness of the number one killer globally of children younger than five years old – and promote interventions and generate action to reduce these avoidable deaths.
Each year, pneumonia kills nearly a million young children – more than malaria, TB, HIV, Zika and Ebola combined, accounting for one in six deaths of children under age five. Nearly all of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
These were deaths that did not have to happen: pneumonia is easily and inexpensively preventable and treatable. The challenge is to ensure that the communities with the greatest burden have the tools, medicines and strategies that save lives. This includes ongoing access to vaccines, appropriate antibiotic treatment and improved sanitation.
The Union's Child Lung Health Programme has worked to reduce pneumonia through standardised case management, initially implemented in Malawi. This programme produced more than a 50 percent reduction in the case fatality rate for children under age five, showing that lower pneumonia-related mortality could be achieved by improved management at the district hospital level, even in a high HIV-endemic setting.
Our approach was modelled on The Union’s milestone DOTS strategy for tuberculosis, which became a global standard, and included surveillance, diagnosis and overall management of respiratory diseases among hospitalised children.
Most significantly, the case management programme is sustainable and replicable.
The Union's Executive Director, José Luis Castro, said “Pneumonia claims over 900,000 young lives annually. Child lung health has been a focus of The Union for 15 years, and working with partners we hope to ensure that communities with the greatest burden have the tools, medicines and strategies that save lives.”
Other broad protection measures include exclusive breastfeeding through the first six months of life, adequate nutrition, regular hand washing and access to clean water and sanitation. Eliminating indoor air pollution—especially from indoor cook stoves—also reduces children’s risk of developing pneumonia. Children are more likely to die from pneumonia in places where they lack access to these protective measures.
The Union is committed to greater advances worldwide in preventing and treating pneumonia. We were one of 140 organisations that created the Global Coalition Against Childhood Pneumonia, which coordinates World Pneumonia Day.
To learn more and get involved visit: http://stoppneumonia.org/