More than 100 nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, and health experts signed on to a statement of support for GAPPD.

Further information on GAPPD can be found here, including report summaries and the statements of support.

Additionally, Save the Children is also encouraging Americans to sign a petition to Senator Kerry urging continued support to the 2010 global nutrition initiative, which has helped several countries develop nutrition strategies.  The initiative is set to expire this June.

In 2011, a staggering 1.3 million children died from pneumonia, making it the leading killer of children under five. Despite the existence of low-cost and highly effective antibiotics, less than one third of children with suspected pneumonia use antibiotics and a tiny minority receive amoxicillin in the ideal form for small children – a tablet that dissolves in liquid.

Making amoxicillin in this form available to the children most at risk of dying from pneumonia would potentially save 1.56 million children over five years, according to a 2012 report by the United Nations Commission on Lifesaving Commodities for Women and Children.

The immediate focus of this new multi-agency push is to increase access to amoxicillin in dispersible tablet form in the ten countries suffering the highest numbers of child pneumonia deaths, including India (400,000 deaths), Nigeria (130,000 deaths), Democratic Republic of Congo (88,000 deaths), Pakistan (67,000 deaths), Ethiopia (41,000 deaths), Uganda (22,000), Niger (20,000), Bangladesh (19,000), Tanzania (18,000) and Kenya (18,000). Two thirds of all child pneumonia deaths occur in these countries.

A key plank of the strategy is to reach the children most at risk of death from pneumonia – children living in families with very low incomes, often in rural areas and far from the reach of formal health services. By focusing on children in the poorest households many more lives can be saved.

Convened by UNICEF and working in partnership with governments and civil society, all partners will collaborate on a strategy to increase access to amoxicillin in dispersible tablet form in the ten target countries that includes:

• increasing the number of local suppliers of quality, affordable amoxicillin dispersible tablets and improving the packaging and instructions for use;
• fast-tracking the local registration of amoxicillin dispersible tablets;
• listing amoxicillin as the recommended treatment for child pneumonia in all relevant national, state and local country guidelines;
• accelerating progress toward the community case management of pneumonia, i.e. empowering, training and equipping frontline health workers and local private health providers to diagnose, treat and refer (when necessary) cases of child pneumonia;
• increasing family awareness of the dangers of pneumonia and the critical importance of seeking care quickly; and
• exploring new models of service delivery that better integrate pneumonia diagnosis and treatment with the delivery of vaccines (e.g. pneumococcal and Hib), diarrhea treatment (e.g. oral rehydration salts and zinc) and the rollout of Rapid Diagnostic Tests for malaria.

In countries where malaria and pneumonia are leading killers of children under 5 (e.g. Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo) health care workers need to distinguish children presenting with malaria from those presenting with pneumonia, and treat them accordingly. The rollout of tests for malaria will help identify children with pneumonia so that they can be treated with amoxicillin, reducing wastage of malaria medicines.

With three years left to 2015, accelerated action on child pneumonia is critical to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 4. The goal of the new effort is to increase access to the most effective antibiotic treatment for the children most at risk of dying from pneumonia in the ten countries where those deaths are concentrated. It is consistent with the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and the Declaration on Scaling Up Treatment of Diarrhea and Pneumonia endorsed by the Child Survival, Call to Action in June 2012.

Click here for the full statement.

*WHO Priority Life-saving Medicines for Women and Children 2012 recommends amoxicillin, 250mg and 500mg scored, dispersible tablet in blister packs of 10.

For more information on pneumonia see, Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed, Progress Report, UNICEF 2012, Pneumonia and Diarrhea. Tackling the Deadliest Diseases for the World’s Poorest Children, UNICEF 2012

Marking the fourth annual World Pneumonia Day, November 12th, world leaders and the Global Coalition Against Child Pneumonia are calling for major efforts in the fight against childhood pneumonia, which remains the number one killer of children under age five. Pneumonia claimed 1.3 million lives in 2011 alone, and was responsible for nearly one in five global child deaths.

“Pneumonia can be prevented and cured.  Yet, for too long it has been the leading cause of global deaths among children.  We know what to do, and we have made great progress – but we must do more.  We must scale-up proven solutions and ensure they reach every child in need,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who spearheads Every Woman Every Child, an umbrella movement that has leveraged more than $20 billion in new money for women’s and children’s health and aims to save 16 million lives by 2015.

Investments in preventing, treating, and protecting children against pneumonia have contributed to significant declines in child mortality over the last decade, but access to healthcare facilities and treatment remains out of reach for many children in the developing world, where 99 percent of deaths from pneumonia occur.  According to the Global Coalition Against Child Pneumonia, country leaders and funders must prioritize efforts and investments in proven interventions, including access to vaccines, proper antibiotic treatment, and improved sanitation, as well as the promotion of practices such as exclusive breastfeeding, frequent hand washing, care seeking, and the use of clean cookstoves to reduce indoor air pollution. Several of these interventions also help address the second leading killer of children – diarrhea.

For pneumonia cases that do occur, antibiotics such as amoxicillin are one of the simplest and least expensive methods of treatment. However, antibiotics are administered to less than one third of children with suspected pneumonia, and only a tiny minority receives amoxicillin in the ideal form for small children: a tablet that dissolves in a very small amount of liquid or breast milk. According to the UN Commission on Life-saving Commodities for Women and Children, making amoxicillin available in a dissolvable tablet form to the children most at risk of dying from pneumonia would potentially save 1.56 million children over five years.

According to a Pneumonia Progress Report released today by the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at Johns Hopkins, 75 percent of all childhood pneumonia deaths worldwide occur in just 15 countries, demonstrating the impact we can have with targeted efforts. The report also notes that none of these countries have reached the 90 percent coverage targets for key pneumonia interventions recommended in the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP).

GAPP, issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2009, specified that child pneumonia deaths could be reduced by two-thirds if three child health interventions – breastfeeding, vaccination and case management including the provision of appropriate antibiotics – were scaled up to reach 90 percent of the world’s children.

Over the past three years, the GAVI Alliance has assisted over 20 countries to introduce the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, which prevents the most common cause of childhood pneumonia.  While progress is being made, currently only 7 of the 15 countries profiled in IVAC’s report have vaccine coverage levels at or above 80 percent.  Coverage of breastfeeding and access to antibiotics are similarly low in most countries.

Key to getting vaccines and treatments to the children who need them most are frontline health workers, who are the first and often only link to healthcare for many children. However, WHO estimates there is currently a shortage of at least one million frontline health workers, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia. Efforts such as Save the Children’s Every Beat Matters campaign are bringing attention to this shortage to spur action.

Events commemorating the fourth annual World Pneumonia Day will be held in nearly a dozen countries, including Argentina, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Philippines, the United States and Zambia.  In the U.S., landmarks in 15 cities will shine blue lights to raise awareness in their communities of the scourge of childhood pneumonia and what U.S. citizens can do to help. Participating buildings include the Wrigley Building (Chicago), Trump Towers SoHo (New York City) and Pacific Science Center (Seattle), among others.  For more information about World Pneumonia Day and its activities, please visit www.worldpneumoniaday.org.

The Global Coalition Against Child Pneumonia was established in 2009 to raise awareness about the toll of pneumonia, the world’s leading killer of children, and to advocate for global action to protect against, effectively treat and help prevent this deadly illness. Comprised of over 140 non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, academic institutions, government agencies and foundations, the Coalition provides leadership for World Pneumonia Day, marked every year on November 12th.

In 2011, a staggering 1.3 million young children died from pneumonia, making it the leading killer of children under five years of age. Almost all deaths occur in the developing world, with six out of every ten child deaths in just six countries – India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, China and Ethiopia. With all countries striving to achieve the two-thirds reduction in child mortality required to achieve MDG4 by 2015, action on pneumonia is critical to success.

Investments in preventing, treating, and protecting children against pneumonia have contributed to significant declines in child mortality over the last decade, but there is more to be done.  We must continue to scale up pneumonia interventions that we know will save children’s lives, including:

• Universal coverage of vaccines that target the leading causes of pneumonia (i.e. pneumococcal and Hib vaccines);
• Education to raise family awareness of the signs, symptoms and dangers of pneumonia and increase care-seeking for sick children;
• Community case management of pneumonia, including increased access to the most effective antibiotic for children with pneumonia, amoxicillin, in dispersible tablet form;
• Exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life;
• Promotion of frequent hand washing with soap; and
• Use of clean cook stoves to reduce indoor air pollution.

If 90% of the world’s children received just three of these interventions – vaccines, case management, and breast feeding – child pneumonia deaths could be reduced by two-thirds by 2015 according to the World Health Organization and UNICEF Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia.  Increased access to amoxicillin alone could potentially save 1.56 million children over five years, according to the recent report by the United Nations Commission on Lifesaving Commodities for Women and Children.

A key ingredient of success is reaching the largest numbers of children most at risk of death from pneumonia – children living in families with very low incomes, often in rural areas and far from the reach of formal health services.  By focusing on children in the poorest households many more lives can be saved.

Reaching these children will require new models of service delivery including public-private partnerships that bring together many stakeholders who are able to coordinate implementation of the interventions listed above in the target countries.  For example, more children’s lives will be saved if pneumonia diagnosis and treatment is more integrated with the delivery of vaccines, with the rollout of Rapid Diagnostic Tests for malaria and with diarrhea prevention and treatment.

In recognition of the 4^th annual World Pneumonia Day on November 12, we call on country leaders to prioritize efforts and investments to reduce the number of child pneumonia deaths by 1) supporting and implementing the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia 2) supporting and implementing the recommendations of the UN Commodities Commission and 3) investing in new models of service delivery that better integrate programs targeting the leading killers of children under five.

With three years to 2015, accelerated action on child pneumonia is critical to the achievement of MDG 4.  Pneumonia is one of global health’s most solvable problems.  We have safe, effective and affordable tools to help children and we can win the fight against pneumonia.

Date Sources: Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed, Progress Report, UNICEF, 2012; Pneumonia and Diarrhea. Tackling the Deadliest Diseases for the World’s Poorest Children, UNICEF, 2012; Priority Life-saving Medicines for Women and Children, WHO, 2012.

By Eric D. McCollum, MD

The scene is familiar, an African healthcare worker with only several months of training but working as the community doctor, is setting up his temporary pediatric clinic in a remote village beneath the shade of a baobab tree. The queue is long, as mothers and their children from this small community and beyond have waited since the early morning for their child to be seen. Some children are sick and need medicine, and some are not and instead need only a weight check and their immunizations. The penetrating tropical sun begins to rise signaling the beginning of the clinic. Fortunately, the girth of the baobab tree provides the necessary relief. “Okay, let’s begin,” the healthcare worker states in the local dialect as his eyes meet with the mother of the first child, a toddling 17 month old girl with only a dirty brown shirt covering her body. “How can I help you?”

“She is sick with fever and cough for four days,” the mother answers, brow tense with concern.

The healthcare worker continues with his routine follow-up questions until this trite scenario takes an unexpected, most interesting turn. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his mobile phone and attaches to it what looks to be almost a miniature suction cup with fine beads covering its face. Several mothers waiting in the line take notice and turn to each other talking quickly. The worker pushes several buttons on his phone and then presses the device onto the bare chest of the girl, who remains clinging to her mother’s breast. He then sits back, rests against the heavy trunk of the baobab tree, punches a button on his mobile phone, and waits. After several short moments the phone then beeps, and his eyebrows raise up in response. “Your child has pneumonia… and needs antibiotics.”

The continent that skipped over clunky technology like landline phones and large desktop computers in favor of slick mobile phones and the internet may also be leapfrogging what many consider to be the first medical device, the stethoscope.  Learning to interpret the sounds captured by the stethoscope can take years of practice.  Even then, opinions processed by the ears of vastly experienced physicians can still differ.  The stethoscope is quite simply “the art of medicine.” Given these inherent drawbacks of traditional stethoscopes, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) diagnostic criteria for childhood pneumonia intentionally ignores respiratory sounds altogether. This allows healthcare providers with minimal training who work in remote areas, often where childhood pneumonia mortality is greatest, to still diagnose and treat pneumonia. The drawback of the WHO not including respiratory sounds in its diagnostic criteria is that many children with pneumonia are incorrectly diagnosed and thus incorrectly treated, a potential danger to the health of the child and waste of scarce financial resources.

Digital auscultation at work. Photo by Eric D. McCollum.

Art may soon be giving way to cutting edge clinical science and computer technology. Electronic devices exist that act similarly to traditional stethoscopes, except that they generate digital sound waves that can be fed into computer software programs. In fact, they are under active study and continued refinement, such that a small mobile device that contains sophisticated software may soon be able to accurately interpret chest sounds for use in clinical care of children. The Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health study, or PERCH, is a large collaborative project funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation currently ongoing in seven developing countries throughout Africa and Asia.  PERCH is utilizing digital stethoscopes to record chest sounds from children hospitalized with life-threatening pneumonia. These sounds are then uploaded onto local internet servers that can be accessed by co-investigators at The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health International Vaccine Access Center and the Johns Hopkins University Engineering Department. These investigators are in turn creating novel computer software algorithms that can interpret these sounds and therefore accurately diagnose childhood respiratory illness. This could mean more efficient use of childhood pneumonia resources and even better outcomes for children sick with pneumonia, the number one cause of childhood mortality globally.

While digital auscultation devices and computer software able to interpret chest sounds from children may still be in experimental phases, it is not unrealistic to envision a time where healthcare professionals located anyplace and anywhere, even beneath a Baobab tree in a remote African village, can utilize this technology to accurately diagnose and provide life-saving treatments to children with pneumonia. So listen up carefully on this World Pneumonia Day, a revolution is coming.

Dr. Eric D. McCollum is a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Division of Pediatric Pulmonology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and a member of the PERCH study team.

Nearly three years after the devastating earthquake of January 2010, many people in the Haitian Capital of Port-au-Prince still live under tents provided through humanitarian aid from other countries. The Haitian Pediatric Society (Societe Haitienne de Pediatrie or SHP) is very preoccupied by that situation, especially since many of the NGOs that had provided help to those camps have now left the country. Unfortunately, what seemed to be a temporary solution to a catastrophic situation is becoming a permanent alternative, leaving many Haitians in very precarious conditions.

One of these citizens is Rachelle, who lives in a tent city in Delmas. She often finds herself searching for medical care for her sick child. When we asked her about her situation she said, “We all want to leave the camp. We are tired of staying under a tent. We can see that it is not good for the kids. They get sick very often.”

Many children still live in tent cities around Port-au-Prince, where they receive less help with each passing month, due to a decrease in the emergency response and an increase in donor discouragement. Their situation leaves them susceptible to many infectious diseases, which are the leading killers of children in developing countries like Haiti. For example, on any given day in our country, more than 60% of patients in pediatric wards are suffering from respiratory infections or diarrhea. Hospitals struggle with the high demand of children needing help and the lack of necessary equipment, such as oxygen concentrators and ventilation units, to properly treat patients. Medical facilities supported by international aid receive additional supplies to meet high demand, but when the international aid leaves, so do the supplies and equipment. With lack of hospital help, children are dying from late consultations after their parents have tried empiric medications.

Guerline also has lived in the tent city since her home was lost in the earthquake. She describes the tent city:  “Too many people living in a small area makes it crowded. The temperature is very high in tent during the day and almost cold at night. The kids in camp are always coughing.”

We at SHP want to make sure people like Rachelle and Guerline, who are desperately seeking a better situation for their children, can be more prepared to offer better care to their children. That is why we are undertaking a variety of educational activities for World Pneumonia Day, to spread awareness of this leading killer of children, along with other diseases. We cannot offer houses to families, nor can we give them money to survive, but we can help teach them how to be prepared to protect their children’s lives.

Growing up as children in Africa, my siblings and I watched our ailing grandmother hold on to life. When she died, we children buried her, because as she used to say: that is the way things are, children bury their parents. Now as an adult, it is sad to realize that the reverse situation can also happen; sometimes parents must bury their children. Every 20 seconds, a mother has to come face to face with the reality of losing and burying a child lost to pneumonia.

We at FISS-MST/SIDA, an organization in Cameroon, understand the importance and need for effective communication in the fight against pneumonia. It is for this reason that we focus our actions for the November 12, 2012 World Pneumonia Day around creating awareness. FISS-MST/SIDA’s work in preparation for the World Pneumonia Day will be to sensitize the public and advocate for change.

Our sensitization campaign involves sending SMS to targeted populations in Cameroon. These targeted populations include adults living in underprivileged neighborhoods whose children are more likely to be exposed to pneumonia, and top ranking personalities in government and other areas who have the capacity to influence national policies on pneumonia. Our sensitization campaign will also extend to the mass media. We will use popular television shows and community radios to disseminate information on the causes, effects, prevention, and treatment of pneumonia. As we are mindful of the undeniable potential of social media, Facebook and Twitter pages have also been created to spread word about pneumonia.

In an attempt to motivate action from the press, health and education sectors, a series of awards will be publicized, notably an award for the best newspaper article, one for the best pneumonia vaccination center, and another for the best essay from primary school pupils respectively.

The advocacy dimension of FISS-MST/SIDA’s communication entails working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to create better health strategies to curb pneumonia and make treatment more accessible, especially at the local levels. It also involves getting either a government official or celebrity to carry pneumonia messages because we believe that this will not only give credibility to the messages being transmitted, but will also draw the interest of the general population.

According to WHO, pneumonia is the single largest cause of death in children worldwide, killing an estimated 1.4 million children under the age of five years every year. With these figures, it is hard to understand how pneumonia finds itself in the category of forgotten diseases, how it is still a silent killer disease, when its casualties are so loud.

The pneumonia statistics are even more alarming when one considers the relationship between HIV and pneumonia. Children with HIV have a higher risk of contracting and dying from pneumonia than children who are HIV negative. Additionally, treatment for pneumonia is more complicated. Pneumonia’s toll makes one less dreamy about the development of the African continent, although more and more efforts are have been made in recent years to make a legacy of prosperity a reality for everyone. Think of the thousands we lose each year to pneumonia that  could have been  been doctors, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and architects. If pneumonia continues to take away as many young lives as it does now, future generations may not be able to reap the fruits of the labor being sowed today.

Thankfully, there is hope. A new pneumonia vaccine was recently sent out in some countries in Africa (Kenya, Sierra Leone, Congo – Brazzaville, Cameroon, Benin, RCA, Gambia, Mali, Rwanda, Ghana…) and is reported to have the potential to save more than half a million lives per year. The vaccine protects children against pneumococcal disease, which is one of the leading causes of pneumonia.

We must sound the alarm; tell friends and family of the good news. Pneumonia can be prevented and treated. We can fight pneumonia if we commit to one effort, one message at a time.

Ojong Merilyne Nchare and Mokwe Welisane Nkeng represent Front for Inter-School Awareness on STD / AIDS (FISS-MST/SIDA)

Global health is like a juggernaut.  It is very hard to turn around if it gets set on the wrong course.  Yet when it comes to the health of the world’s most vulnerable children, this is basically what has to be done if we want to save children’s lives on the scale required to achieve global health goals.  We need to turn the juggernaut around and set it on a path towards a new goal – fighting the leading killers of children.

If you don’t work in global health you might be surprised to learn that fighting the leading killers of children has not been a global priority.  You might also be surprised to learn exactly what the leading killers of children under 5 are – two diseases, pneumonia and diarrhea.  These two kill more children under 5 than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.  They cause 2 million children to die every year and account for a massive 30% of all under 5 deaths.  And yet they attract less than 5% of global health funding.

To add insult to injury we have very cost effective vaccines, antibiotics and other treatments like oral rehydration salts and zinc that can prevent and treat the leading causes of pneumonia and diarrhea.  If we made them widely available, pneumonia and diarrhea would kill a fraction of the children that they do now.  Vaccines alone have the power to prevent almost 1 million child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhea every year.  When you add in antibiotics, oral rehydration salts, zinc and vitamin A supplements – each of which cost cents per dose – you can probably double that figure and wipe out almost all deaths.

So why haven’t we done it?  The answer has a lot to do with our global health architecture and our failure to mobilize and focus global health resources on the areas where the greatest number of children can be saved – and of course the two are related.  We have separate organizations that deliver vaccines, medicines and nutritional supplements and they typically compete over scarce donor dollars rather than collaborate to introduce these interventions in the countries where most children are dying.  They are rewarded for the amount of funding they can attract rather than for the number of children’s lives they are actually saving, so the incentive is to focus their resources on raising money rather than collaborating to save children.

If we did have one global health organization responsible for halving child mortality by 2015 – saving about 3.5 million lives per year – with the power and resources to coordinate vaccine delivery with access to antibiotics and other interventions, you would start to see some real progress.  And if that organization focused on the most vulnerable children in the countries where child deaths are concentrated – India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and China (precisely the countries where our existing health organizations often struggle to have impact), then you would start to see child mortality reductions on the scale required to achieve global health goals.

But we don’t live in a perfect world and we won’t see a more effective global health architecture anytime soon. So what can we do in the countdown to 2015 to save more children from pneumonia and diarrhea? We can continue to argue that the big donors in child health put pneumonia and diarrhea to the top of their lists.  We can ask the major UN agencies and NGOs in child health to account for the proportion of their budgets allocated to pneumonia and diarrhea – are they spending ~30% to fight the leading killers of children?  We can create structures that make it easier for all partners to collaborate in the regions where child deaths are concentrated because if we want to achieve impact at scale, we have to work at scale and that is beyond the capacity of any one organization.  At the very least we need large, multi-stakeholder public-private partnerships mobilized against pneumonia and diarrhea in the northern states of India and the northern states of Nigeria where we need the prevention and treatment communities working hand in glove to reach the most vulnerable children.  And we need World Pneumonia Day!  Because the real value of this day is to shine a light on all of these opportunities and to draw together the many stakeholders committed to advancing the health of children so we can save more children, quickly.

Leith Greenslade is Co-Chair of Child Health at the MDG Health Alliance, which is a member of the Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia.

I have been trying to recall the earliest time when I first heard of pneumonia or “pulmonya” as we call it here in the Philippines. And I realized I could have been 4 or 5 years old or even much younger when my mom or my grandmother would tell us to wipe the perspiration off our backs, keep it dry or else we might catch pneumonia. We have heard it a million times over after that: during our teen years when the old folks would prevent us from wearing backless tops lest we’d have pneumonia; people telling people to cover their babies and protect the elderly; and even in a song.

But what do we really know about pneumonia? Do we really get it by exposing our backs to the cold breeze or from kissing a guy as the song says? Do we even realize that we never really give it that much thought? How many people, outside of the medical and/or health field, actually know that pneumonia is the number one killer of children below five years old in the world? I bet not many!

It was back in September, 2011 when I began to know pneumonia a little more. I was having a chat with Dr. Lulu Bravo (pictured above), a well-respected pediatrician and a very passionate advocate for disease prevention. She mentioned that she was looking for someone to write a song for a dance competition among public health workers she was going to launch in connection with the World Pneumonia Day celebration. I happen to know Mr. Jungee Marcelo, a multi-awarded song/jingle writer/composer, and I volunteered to introduce them. I had no plans of getting involved beyond that. But everyone who knows Dr. Bravo would agree with me that her passion sucks you in… and deep. To cut the story short, I ended up being involved in the project more than I planned to. It was an enlightening experience. It was then that I realized the irony of pneumonia: that it can be fatal, widespread, and dangerous – yet so simple to prevent. The song “Sapul sa Pulmonya,” embodied the simple message of “Prevent, Protect and Treat,” through breastfeeding, proper nutrition, avoidance of indoor pollution, vaccines and antibiotics.

Honorable Eric Tayag, MD, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health, delivering his Keynote Message during the event.

Armed with new information about pneumonia, I began telling people about it: how it could be mistaken for a simple cough, how deadly it is and telling the elder people to get vaccines for it.   Yet still, I don’t know much. I question why my mom still gets pneumonia even when she’d been vaccinated against it. Why is it still the number one killer of children when a vaccine to prevent it exists? Why, why, and more whys and some how’s and what’s, as well.

Needless to say, I have so much to learn not only about pneumonia, but about vaccines as well, and I vowed to learn more. So I try to read online literature, ask questions, attend lectures when there is opportunity for it.

And a great opportunity came last August 28-29, 2012 through the “Vaccinology Course: Focus on Pneumococcal Disease and Prevention.” It was a two-day course organized by the Philippine Foundation for Vaccination, the Department of Health and the Vaccine Study Group of the National Institutes for Health as part of the activities for the World Pneumonia Day celebrations.  Here, lectures were presented on the value of vaccines, how it works, the many types of pneumococcal diseases and vaccines. It was an enlightening two days, I must say.

Did you know that there are 93 serotypes (which, in simple terms for us lay people, is the variations or versions of bacteria or viruses) of the bacteria that cause pneumonia? Well there are, and we only have vaccines for some of them. But this would be a very long discussion, so let me tell you about it and the other lectures presented in the next blog. Until then, stay safe and go ask your health provider about vaccines.

Vina Carandang is a lawyer who is actively engaged in the promotion of “Vaccination for Life” on behalf of the Immunization Partners in Asia Pacific (IPAP).