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12 November: World Pneumonia Day



World Pneumonia Day is commemorated on 12 November each year. The World Health Organization (WHO) established World Pneumonia Day in 2009 to raise awareness about the leading killer of children under the age of 5 around the world and to advocate global action to prevent it.

The aim of World Pneumonia Day is to:
  • raise awareness about pneumonia
  • promote interventions to protect against, prevent, and treat pneumonia and highlight proven approaches and solutions in need of additional resources, and
  • generate action, including donor investment, to combat pneumonia.

Pneumonia is preventable and treatment is affordable, yet it is the leading killer of children under the age of five years. About 155 million children globally are affected by pneumonia each year, with 1.6 million deaths each year. It claims more deaths than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. World Pneumonia Day keeps this health crisis in the public’s attention and encourages policy makers to combat the disease.

Vaccines are available but more work is needed on research and education. There are two effective vaccines against the two most common causes of deadly pneumonia: Haemophilus influenzae type B, and Streptococcus pneumoniae.

The Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP) released by WHO and UNICEF in 2009 found that a million children’s lives could be saved every year if prevention and treatment interventions for pneumonia were widely introduced in the world’s poorest countries.




https://www.youtube.com/embed/B_3C7n7IdFg

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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