World Pneumonia Day takes place on November 12,
2016. World Pneumonia Day provides an annual forum for the world to
stand together and demand action in the fight against pneumonia.
Pneumonia is a preventable and treatable disease that sickens 155
million children under 5 and kills 1.6 million each year. This makes
pneumonia the number 1 killer of children under 5, claiming more young
lives than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Yet most people are
unaware of pneumonia's overwhelming death toll. Because of this
pneumonia has been overshadowed as a priority on the global health
agenda, and rarely receives coverage in the news media. World Pneumonia
Day helps to bring this health crisis to the public's attention and
encourages policy makers and grassroots organizers alike to combat the
disease. In spite of the massive death toll of this disease, affordable
treatment and prevention options exist. There are effective vaccines
against the two most common causes of deadly pneumonia, Haemophilus
influenzae type B and Streptococcus pneumoniae. A course of antibiotics
which costs less than $1(US) is capable of curing the disease if it is
started early enough. The Global Action Plan for the Prevention and
Control of Pneumonia (GAPP) released by the WHO and UNICEF on World
Pneumonia Day, 2009, finds that 1 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.
