World Pneumonia Day
More than 1.5 million kids under the age of 5 die every year from pneumonia.
Who knew?
In wealthy countries, we tend to think of pneumonia as a disease of the elderly, but pneumonia actually kills more young children than HIV, measles and malaria combined. Another child dies from pneumonia every 20 seconds.
Today is a day that’s meant to bring attention to pneumonia, the leading killer of young children. You probably didn’t wake up thinking about World Pneumonia Day, but now that you know, it’s a great opportunity to spend a few minutes to learn how you can make a difference.
Pneumonia is an infection in the lungs that makes it impossible to take in enough air to survive, and is particularly dangerous for children that are otherwise weakened by malnutrition and limited access to proper health care. It can be caused by a range of factors, some environmental (like air pollution) and others by infections. These factors can be easily addressed, so fighting pneumonia is a matter of commitment and funding. That’s where you can help.
(more…)
This is the fifth in a series of commentaries contributed by the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE). A project of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, PACE is working to ensure that existing safe and effective vaccines for pneumonia—the world’s leading childhood killer—reach all of the children who need them.
![ORIN HI RES[1]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/5166889148_6b0b9086bf_m.jpg)
Sometimes I wish that ONE Blog readers got to decide our global health priorities. Because, as a child survival advocate, you probably already know what many policymakers do not: that pneumonia claims more young lives than any other disease. World Pneumonia Day on November 12 is a chance not only to raise awareness of this terrible disease, but to elevate proven solutions to saving children’s lives.
All told, more than 1.5 million children die needlessly from the disease every year. The source of our shame –- and our hope –- is that many of these deaths could be prevented with safe and effective vaccines. These vaccines have been routinely given to babies in rich countries such as the United States, and recent investments are allowing low-income countries such as Zimbabwe and the Gambia to finally protect their children too.
The scope of the problem cannot be overstated. One child dies from pneumonia every 20 seconds. That’s 4,300 lives lost every day. And 98 percent of these deaths occur in low-income countries. The cost of medical treatment, along with parents’ lost wages to care for their children, reinforces a poverty trap for the poorest of the poor.
(more…)
As we told you earlier this week, this Friday is World Pneumonia Day. Pneumonia claims more lives than any other disease in the developing world for children under the age of five. But thankfully, it is considered one of global health’s most solvable problems.
To raise awareness on the importance of providing vaccines and antibiotics treatment for children in the developing world, here are some quick facts about the illness from WorldPneumoniaDay.org:
1. Pneumonia kills more children under the age of five than any other disease, claiming a young life every 20 seconds. That’s 4,300 young lives lost every day!
2. For every child that dies from pneumonia in the industrialized world, 2,000 more die in developing countries.
3. In these countries, children under 5 and under 2 years of age are at risk, especially in the poorest communities.
4. In fact, an estimated 98 percent of children who die of pneumonia live in developing countries.
5. Each year, there are more than 150 million episodes of pneumonia in young children in developing countries, and more than 11 million children need hospitalization for pneumonia.
6. The financial costs of pneumonia include hospital stays and medications, transportation to health centers, and the caretakers’ inability to work or take care of other family members while they are caring for a sick child. Families often must take out large loans to pay for care of their seriously ill child, which may further drag them into deep poverty.
7. Exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life is an important and easy way to help protect children from pneumonia and many other diseases.
8. The treatment for most types of serious pneumonia is usually antibiotics, which typically cost less than $1 per dose.
9. Tragically, only an estimated 1 of every 5 children with pneumonia receives antibiotics.
Please spread the word and don’t forget to wear blue on Friday! To find out how you can take action, visit the World Pneumonia Day website.
Here’s a great blog post from Leith Greenslade, director on the board of GAVI Alliance’s Immunize Every Child campaign ahead of World Pneumonia Day on Friday. Effective prevention and treatment of pneumonia -– alongside efforts to improve access to other vaccines, bed nets, micronutrients, and treatments for infectious diseases -– will allow us to make major strides toward achieving MDG 4.
As welcome as the news was that 3.7 million fewer children are dying before they reach their 5th birthday, the reality is that the pace of change is nowhere near fast enough to reach Millennium Development Goal 4 by 2015.
One disease holds the key to this goal –- pneumonia –- and achieving MDG4 will depend on the degree to which pneumonia is singled out for special attention by the global health and donor communities.
(more…)
Check out this post from our partner organization the U.S. Coalition for Child Survival about the introduction of the Global Child Survival Act of 2009 in the U.S. Senate.
-Margaret McDonnell
I attended the kick-off program for the first World Pneumonia Day in New York. The US Coalition for Child Survival was one of the original groups to join the effort to highlight this event – not a day of celebration, but more a day of awareness. Pneumonia kills more than 2 million newborns and children under the age of 5 every year, mainly in the developing world, and is the leading cause of child deaths. However, with the introduction of vaccinations and improvements in early newborn care, many of these children can be saved.
We need to redouble our efforts to save children from diseases and conditions such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and with issues linked to poor nutrition. The only way that will happen is with a country-by-country strategy and a focused plan of action. The United States can and should be the leader in such efforts to save the lives of young children. We need to increase the resources given to USAID, strengthening its capacity to help ensure that the full package of newborn and child health interventions is available everywhere.
Last week, Senator Dodd (D-Conn.), Senator Corker (R-Tenn.), and Senator Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced the Global Child Survival Act of 2009 (S.1966). This critical piece of legislation recognizes the challenges and opportunities in global child health and calls for greater coordination and enhanced accountability in US Government programs, as well as a government-wide strategy for meeting Millennium Development Goal #4.
The US Coalition for Child Survival has extensive information on newborn and child health, including an easy-to-use factsheet and FAQ page on the new legislation. Visit our detailed information page on S.1966 to learn more and sign up for our e-mail newsletter for updates on the bill’s progress and related efforts.
Let’s work together for the day when we can truly celebrate the end of pneumonia as the number one killer of children. Won’t that be a great World Pneumonia Day to look forward to?
-Andrew Barrer, Executive Director, US Coalition for Child Survival
If you’ve been following our pneumonia blog series, it’s no news to you that despite being the number one killer of children globally, pneumonia has attracted only a fraction of the funding and attention that other global health issues have garnered. Today’s ONE co-sponsored the first ever World Pneumonia Day summit in New York sought to reverse this trend by rallying stakeholders towards a common goal: preventing 5 million child deaths by 2015 by delivering existing interventions in countries with the highest pneumonia burdens. The summit brought together global health experts and advocates to complement a week of awareness-raising events happening in countries like Nigeria, Bangladesh, Kenya and the Philippines.
The summit coincided with the launch of the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP), a report authored by UNICEF and the WHO. The GAPP lays out a roadmap for the world to save 5 million lives over the next 6 years through an integrated strategy of protection, prevention and treatment in 68-high burden countries. Meeting these targets will require an estimated $3.8 billion in 2010 to be scaled up to reach $8 billion by 2015. This comes out to an investment of $12.90 per child each year.
Not surprisingly, the majority of this funding is designated for strengthening health systems in developing countries so that pneumonia cases are identified and treated properly and interventions can reach the people who need them. Although many of the speakers focused on the specific impact of pneumonia and the tools needed to fight it, there was also a strong emphasis on the need to integrate any pneumonia strategy with the fight against other major childhood diseases like diarrhea and malaria, especially at the implementation level.
The role of pneumonia in the broader global health and development agenda was put on the table from the very beginning by the Summit’s opening speakers, Columbia Professor Jeff Sachs and Grammy-winning singer and UNICEF Ambassador Angelique Kidjo. Prof. Sachs opened the summit with a call for the pneumonia community to work with the HIV/AIDS and malaria communities instead of “squabbling’” over which disease is receiving the funding it needs because, as we all know, no disease is truly receiving the global attention and resources it needs to be eradicated. He also pointed to the UN MDG Review Summit in 2010 as a moment for the global development community to come together to hold world leaders accountable for their efforts to achieve the eight goals set out in 2000, especially President Obama who has committed to come to the summit with a global plan to reach the MDGs by 2015 and eradicate global poverty in the years beyond. Ms. Kidjo built on this imperative by speaking about the importance of women’s education in the fight against pneumonia and other childhood diseases by drawing on her own childhood in Benin and her travels as a UNICEF Ambassador throughout Africa, where she said women are key to ending pneumonia and other diseases through their role as mothers and caregivers.
Overall, it was a great morning with some important takeaways and action items for all the groups involved. You can watch the webcast of the event here and read about how you can support the World Pneumonia Day Coalition here.
Owen Barder, an economist living and working in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, talks about the great impact of the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) on this first World Pneumonia Day:
“If you pay taxes in Italy, the UK, Canada, Norway, or Russia, pat yourself on the back. Your government has contributed to a market-based financing mechanism called the Advance Market Commitment, or AMC. This provides an incentive for vaccine makers to produce suitable vaccines in the necessary quantities at an affordable price for developing countries. The result is that GAVI has been able to reduce the current price of existing pneumococcal vaccines by up to 90%.
In the past, it often took 15 or 20 years before vaccines developed for rich countries were sold at affordable prices in developing countries. Because of the Advance Market Commitment, four vaccine suppliers are now offering pneumo vaccines, specifically developed for the the developing world at affordable prices.
This is aid at its best: creating financial incentives for companies to bring their expertise and innovation to the table to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. Donors only pay for vaccines that actually get delivered and used. This money will save the lives of about seven million children over the next 20 years…
And to the countless bureaucrats and nay-sayers who thought it could never happen: yah-booh-sucks.”
Check out his full post here.
