Fighting Pneumonia: The Orphan of Global Health

Published August 25, 2009 @ 06:30PM PT

by Leith Greenslade

If you were asked, "what is the greatest threat to the world's children?", you might answer malaria, or HIV/AIDS, or war or famine.  But the correct answer is something that would never occur to most people - it is pneumonia.

Pneumonia kills more children than anything else - 2 million every year - despite the fact that we have vaccines and antibiotics that can prevent and treat pneumonia.  So you might ask, why are 2 million children dying from a disease that we know how to prevent and treat?

One of the reasons is that public awareness about pneumonia as the #1 killer of children is very low because nobody talks about it.  And the 2 million children who die from pneumonia live in developing countries, so here in the United States we don't see the problem.

But travel to most parts of Africa and South Asia and you will see hospitals filled with children struggling to breathe and parents terrified when the word pneumonia is mentioned.

To shine a light on child pneumonia deaths, Save the Children, UNICEF, the GAVI Alliance and many other groups (full list of Coalition members below) have joined together for the first time to mount a global advocacy effort to change the way the world responds to childhood pneumonia.

We are planning to hold the first World Pneumonia Day on November 2nd.  On that day in New York City international health experts, leading non-government organizations, governments, foundations, the private sector, faith-based communities and influential journalists will hold a Global Pneumonia Summit.

We know what needs to be done.  Exclusive breastfeeding, routine vaccination with the pneumococcal, Hib, measles and pertussis vaccines and proper diagnosis and treatment by community health workers who can dispense antibiotics are the three planks of a successful pneumonia fighting strategy.

The stakes are high.  1 million child pneumonia deaths could be prevented every year if the world's poorest children received the vaccinations and antibiotic treatment that are available to children in the developed world.

But every day another 5,500 children die from pneumonia.  Between now and November 2nd, 400,000 children will die because we are not able to get vaccines and antibiotics to them.

UNICEF has called pneumonia the ‘forgotten killer of children', but the real tragedy is that the millions of children who die from pneumonia have also been forgotten.  Let World Pneumonia Day be the beginning of new hope for the children who suffer from pneumonia, and for the families who suffer with them.

Leith Greenslade is a member of the GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child Board.  The GAVI Alliance helps 72 of the world's poorest countries introduce life-saving vaccines.  As a result of GAVI Alliance support, WHO projects that 3.4 million deaths have been averted and 213 million additional children have been vaccinated.

If your organization would like to add its voice to the growing number advocating for a renewed global effort against child pneumonia, please contact Nicole King at +1-202-297-2386 or nking@eurekastrategies.com.

To learn more about World Pneumonia Day, please visit

http://www.WorldPneumoniaDay.org, where you can register your organization and sign up for email updates.

To join our Facebook community, please visit http://tinyurl.com/WorldPneumoniaDay

To sign our World Pneumonia Day petition, please visit http://www.change.org/gavialliance/actions/view/fight_pneumonia_the_1_killer_of_children

Pictured: Richelle Ogle, Leith Greenslade and Angie Tarr at a health clinic in Monrovia, Liberia, January 2009.  Pneumonia is the #1 killer of Liberian children.

Leading advocates for children who are part of the coalition include:

Antibiotic Consensus Society of Uganda (ACSU) Arab Pediatric Infectious Disease Society Best Shot Foundation California Immunization Coalition Center for Vaccine development (CVD-Mali) Centre National d'Appui à la lutte contre la Maladie (CNAM) Chinese Society of Pediatric Pulmonology Croatian Center for Global Health The Earth Institute, Columbia University Episcopal Relief and Development Destinee Charity Foundation, Cameroon GAVI Alliance Global Action for Children Global Science Academy, India Hedge Funds vs. Malaria & Pneumonia The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease International Rescue Committee Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Jordan University Medical School, Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease The MacDella Cooper Foundation Monitoring and Accelerate Child Survival Initiative (MACS Initiative) Millennium Villages Project Ministry of Health - ARI Programme, Malawi. Ministry of Health, Mali New York University, Global Public Health Program Parents of Kids with Infectious Diseases (PKIDs) The Paediatric Association of Nigeria (PAN) Paediatrics Association of DRC Paediatric Infectious Diseases Society, Nigeria Pediatric Association of Tanzania Pneumonia Advocacy and Working Group of Uganda US Fund for UNICEF Sabin Vaccine Institute Save the Children Voices for Vaccines Uganda Paediatrics Association(UPA) University of Melbourne, Centre for International Child Health US Coalition for Child Survival The Task Force for Global Health

Technical assistance provided by: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF