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| First World Pneumonia Day today |
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Pneumonia kills two million children every year
Monday, November 02, 2009
By Our Correspondent
LAHORE
NEARLY 100 leading global health organisations from around the world will join forces on Monday (today) to recognise the first annual World Pneumonia Day and urge governments to take steps to fight pneumonia, the world’s leading killer of young children.
The first steps in this fight are outlined in the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia, to be released on Monday (today) by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF.
“Pneumonia kills more children than any other disease, taking more than two million young lives annually”. “Nearly half of these deaths can be prevented with existing vaccines, and the vast majority of cases can be treated with inexpensive antibiotics.
Pneumonia takes the lives of more children under five than measles, malaria and AIDS combined. The disease takes the life of one child every 15 seconds, and accounts for 20% of all deaths of children under five worldwide. While pneumonia affects children and families everywhere, it has the most deadly impact in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where 98% of pneumonia deaths occur. It can be prevented with simple interventions, and treated with low-cost, low-tech medication and care.
According to the Global Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP) being released today by WHO and UNICEF, it outlines a six-year plan for the worldwide scale-up of a comprehensive set of interventions to control the disease.
Countries are urged to implement a three-pronged pneumonia control strategy that protects children by promoting exclusive breastfeeding and ensuring adequate nutrition and good hygiene. It prevents the disease by vaccinating them against common causes of pneumonia such as Streptococcus pneumonias (pneumococcal disease) and Haemophilus influenzas type b (Hib); and treats children at the community level and in clinics and hospitals through effective case management and with an appropriate course of antibiotics. The GAPP estimates the cost of scaling up exclusive breastfeeding, vaccinations and case management in the world’s 68 high child mortality countries. Together, these countries account for 98% pneumonia deaths worldwide.
Studies show that implementing pneumonia prevention and treatment interventions worldwide can save more than one million lives each year and significantly reduce the burden of families and communities that must cope with pneumonia-related illnesses and deaths.
Pneumonia can be treated effectively with antibiotics that cost less than a dollar, but less than 20% of children with pneumonia receive the antibiotics they need, according to WHO.
Safe and effective vaccines exist to provide protection against the primary causes of pneumonia, Streptococcus pneumonias (pneumococcal disease) and Haemophilus influenzas type b (Hib). However, use of Hib vaccine has only recently expanded to low-income countries and pneumococcal vaccine is not yet included in national immunisation programmes in the developing world where children bear the highest risk of pneumonia and where most pneumonia-related child deaths occur.
To date, 11 countries have received GAVI Alliance approval for support to introduce pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and 12 additional countries have submitted applications.
Pakistan has 23 million under five children, with nearly 100 million episodes of respiratory illnesses per year, approximately 40 million episodes of Pneumonia a year and 95,000 under five pneumonia deaths a year. It ranks fourth in the world with maximum episodes, high under five mortality (98/1000 live births) and the Infant mortality rate of 74/ 1000 live births. This day has to be very special to all the child advocates, decision-makers and political leaders to contemplate and hasten action.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
