2012 Pneumonia Progress Report
Produced by the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Recent estimates from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) show that pneumonia continues to be the number one killer of children around the world – causing 18% of all child mortality, an estimated 1.3 million child deaths in 2011 alone. The majority of pneumonia cases are both preventable and treatable.
IVAC’s annual 2012 Pneumonia Progress Report examines data on several key pneumonia child health interventions – 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.
The Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP), issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2009, reported that child pneumonia deaths could be reduced by two-thirds if these interventions were scaled up to reach 90 percent coverage targets.
Key Takeaways from the 2012 Pneumonia Progress Report
- Bangladesh and Tanzania are no longer amongst the top 15 countries with the greatest number of child pneumonia deaths, and have been replaced by Mali and the aggregated Sudan and South Sudan (analyzed together at the time of data collection). Tanzania and Bangladesh remain high mortality countries, at 16th and 17th, respectively, worldwide.
- Combined coverage scores for the GAPP interventions range from a low of 39% in Ethiopia to a high of 79% in aggregated Sudan and South Sudan, among the 15 countries profiled.
- None of the countries profiled have reached the 90% GAPP target for each intervention.
- While significant progress in the area of vaccination has been made, more work is needed. Currently, only 7 of the 15 countries have vaccine coverage levels at or above 80 percent.
- Coverage of breastfeeding and access to antibiotics are also low in most countries.
More targeted and effective work is needed to scale up life-saving interventions if we are to successfully combat the world’s leading killer of young children.
Get the Full Report
Download the complete 2012 Pneumonia Progress Report (PDF).
Previous Pneumonia Progress Reports
View the 2011 Pneumonia Progress Report (PDF). An animated version (Prezi) of the 2011 Pneumonia Progress Report is also available.
View the 2010 Pneumonia Report Card (PDF) here.
