Give Kids A Shot

This week, ONE, a global advocacy campaign against poverty and disease with more than two million members across the world, joined forces with over 40 health and humanitarian relief organizations to declare November 2 as the first-ever World Pneumonia Day.

Activities being planned on six continents include rallies, conferences, races and radio campaigns, among others.

Pneumonia is the world's biggest killer of children. According to the Gavi Alliance, more than two million children die from pneumonia each year, accounting for one in five of the nine million deaths of children under the age of five worldwide.

According to the alliance, despite the massive death toll, pneumonia is underfunded and rarely mentioned in the news media. UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) recently dubbed it "the forgotten killer of children."

ONE president and CEO David Lane says: “We have seen that when the world takes aim at preventable diseases and partners with poor countries in smart ways, we get results and save lives. It’s time for the world to target pneumonia in a concerted way and stop these needless deaths. The disease kills more children than measles, malaria, and AIDS combined."

"Pneumonia has long been one of the greatest threats to child survival, and the biggest obstacle to achieving Millennium Development Goal 4, to reduce the under five mortality rate by two thirds by 2015," said Dr. Samir Saha, Head of the Department of Microbiology at the Bangladesh Institute of Child Health.

"The greatest tragedy of pneumonia is that most of these child deaths can be prevented through vaccines, early diagnosis and proper treatment with antibiotics that cost less than a dollar," said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children.

Vaccines against two of pneumonia's common bacterial causes, Hib and pneumococcus, have prevented many deaths in industrialized countries but are not yet available in most of the developing world.

If you would like to participate in this all-important day, you can start right now by taking an online interactive quiz at GiveVaccines.org. For every correct answer, funds will be donated to the Gavi Fund for the purchase of vaccines by Gavi Alliance partners.

The goals of GiveVaccines.org are to increase awareness about vaccine preventable diseases, show how one person and one vaccine can save a life and empower people to be a part of the solution.

Photo courtesy Julien Harris via Flickr.