World Pneumonia Day: Time to prevent avoidable child deaths

Today people across the globe mark World Pneumonia Day to  create awareness of the disease as a public health issue and help prevent the millions of avoidable child deaths from pneumonia that occur each year.

Pneumonia remains the leading infectious killer of children under the age of 5 worldwide.  UNICEF estimates that it kills close to one million children annually thus equivalent of 16 per cent child deaths. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the day was established on November 12, 2009 to support interventions to protect against, prevent, and treat pneumonia and highlight proven approaches and solutions in need of additional resources and attention. It is also a call to countries and all stakeholders to work together to combat pneumonia and other common, yet sometimes deadly, childhood diseases according to WHO.

Despite being easily preventable and treatable, pneumonia remains one of the leading causes of deaths in children under five years old.

According to Stop Pneumonia - an initiative that provides a voice for communities who suffer from the devastating consequences of the disease and lack access to lifesaving interventions, by 2016, Tanzania ranked 15^th in the world for the number of pneumonia and diarrheal child deaths. The good news is that there is a strong political will by the Tanzanian Government to curb child deaths. The country is employing preventive methods like using high-impact immunization programmes to reduce the disease burden. However, those children born in poor households are at highest risk of pneumonia, as they cannot either access healthcare facilities to access vaccinations or afford lifesaving medication.