New UN Pneumonia campaign targets over 5 million children

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), has launched a global campaign, targeting 5.3 million children prone to pneumonia, a health problem the world body describes as ‘‘the biggest child killer worldwide.’’ Valued $39 billion, the ‘Global Action Plan’ is set to run up to the year 2015.

According to the UN, with close to a death toll of 2 million children related to the disease annually, with nearly all deaths occurring in 68 developing countries, ‘‘relatively few resources are available to addressing pneumonia.’’
This Global Action Plan, the UN says, envisages prevention and control of Pneumonia, as well as seeking to raise awareness of the disease's massive toll, and put forward recommendations on what needs to be done. It will also seek to lay out specific goals and targets towards making a positive impact in the overall plan.
The UN aims to achieve this massive goal by approaching it in three fold – by protecting all children with the provision of an environment where they are at low risk of contracting the disease through exclusive breastfeeding for six months, adequate nutrition and reducing indoor air pollution, among other measures; by preventing children from becoming ill through vaccinations against diseases causing pneumonia, such as measles and pertussis; and by treating children who come down with pneumonia with the right care and antibiotics.
The WHO Director-General, Margaret ChanMargaret Chan, expressed confidence in the plan, stressing that "if it is applied in every high burden country, we will be able to prevent millions of death."
For her part, UNICEF Executive Director, Ann M. Veneman, underscored that "effective interventions to reduce deaths caused by Pneumonia must be used more widely and made more readily available for children at risk."
The project aims ‘‘to boost coverage of all relevant vaccines and exclusive breastfeeding rates to 90 per cent to reach the goal of slashing child pneumonia deaths by 65 per cent and cutting the number of severe cases by 25 per cent, compared to 2000 levels,’’ the release from the United Nations states.