2011 Progress Report

In their annual report, The International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health looks at the status of the fight against childhood pneumonia. This year's Pneumonia Progress Report examines data on several key pneumonia interventions – including exclusive breastfeeding, access to a health care facility, antibiotic treatment and vaccination against pneumonia’s four leading causes – in the 15 countries with the most child pneumonia deaths.

2011 Pneumonia Progress Report Key Takeaways

Pneumonia is one of the most solvable problems in global health, yet it remains the world’s leading killer of young children. 

• Pneumonia takes the lives of more than one million children each year – more than any other disease – despite the fact that safe, effective interventions exist to protect against, prevent and treat this illness.
• The Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP), issued by WHO and UNICEF in 2009, showed that child pneumonia deaths could be reduced by two-thirds if existing interventions to protect against, prevent and treat pneumonia could be scaled up to reach 90 percent of the world’s children.

Great progress is being made to speed vaccines to the developing world, which is projected to have a tremendous health impact – but there still remains great need to scale up key pneumonia protection and treatment interventions. 

• Significant progress toward GAPP targets has been made in the area of vaccination. Within the last year alone, 10 of the 15 profiled countries have either introduced the newest-generation pneumococcal vaccines (PCV), have been approved for introduction, or have applied to the GAVI alliance for introduction support.
• By introducing PCV in low-income countries faster than Hib vaccine was able to be introduced, 158 million additional children in these countries will become protected over the next decade.
• The latest available data show that all 15 profiled countries have sub-optimal levels of exclusive breastfeeding, access to care facilities and treatment with antibiotics.

This progress in vaccinations must continue – and efforts to protect against and treat pneumonia must scale up – if we are to successfully combat the world’s leading killer of young children.

Animated 2011 Progress Report

Download the Full Report

The complete 2011 Progress Report (PDF) is available here.
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View the 2010 Pneumonia Report Card (PDF) here.