World Pneumonia Day;
On World Pneumonia Day, ICHR urges the governments to step up investments in vaccines to prevent the disease, and in health services and medicines to treat Pneumonia. This is a forgotten global epidemic demands an urgent international response.
World Pneumonia Day provides an annual forum for the world to stand together and demand action in the fight against pneumonia.
Pneumonia killed more than 800,000 babies and young children last year – or one child every 39 seconds – despite being curable and mostly preventable.
The fact that this preventable, treatable and easily diagnosed disease is still the world’s biggest killer of young children is absolutely shocking.
Pneumonia is a lung disease that can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi. Its victims have to fight for breath as their lungs fill with pus and fluid.
It can be prevented with vaccines, and treated with antibiotics and – in severe cases – with oxygen, but in poorer countries, access to these are often limited.
Nigeria, India, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia accounted for more than half the children who died of pneumonia last year – most of them babies who had not reached their second birthday.
“Millions of children are in desperate need for vaccines, affordable antibiotics and routine oxygen treatment,” said Ardeshire Zarezadeh, Executive Director for Iran, and The Middle East at ICHR Canada.
ICHR urges the governments to step up investments in vaccines to prevent the disease, and in health services and medicines to treat Pneumonia. This is a forgotten global epidemic demands an urgent international response.