What disease do you think kills the most young children worldwide? If your guess is AIDS, malaria or measles, you are wrong. There’s another disease out there that kills more children under age 5 than those three diseases combined. It’s pneumonia. And every 15 seconds, it claims another child’s life.
Pneumonia kills more children than any other illness and yet hardly anyone talks about it. To make matters worse, we have the tools to prevent most of those deaths but lack the political will to make their use a priority. In short, it’s a disease desperately in need of attention. That’s why Save the Children and a coalition of other concerned organizations and individuals have teamed up to launch the first-ever World Pneumonia Day on November 2nd.
You can show your support for World Pneumonia Day and make a real difference in the lives of children around the world - here is how:
· Play the game at www.missionpneumonia.org and learn what it takes to fight pneumonia around the world by taking our quiz.
· Sign the petition to Congress showing your support for the Newborn, Child and Mother Survival Act in the House and the Global Child Survival Act of 2009 in the Senate which would recommit the United States to lead the way in improving children’s and mothers’ health by developing and implementing an integrated, comprehensive strategy that includes protection, prevention and treatment of pneumonia.
· Help provide the supplies or training that Community Health Workers need to help diagnose and treat pneumonia http://www.savethechildren.org/gifts/gift-catalog/product-community-health-worker.html
· Wear blue jeans on Monday, November 2nd to raise awareness of World Pneumonia Day. For many people, wearing blue jeans on a work day will be unusual. When people ask, “Why blue jeans today?” talk about pneumonia and how they can help.
We have the knowledge and the tools to make a real difference. Affordable prevention and treatment options exist. A course of antibiotics which costs less than $1 is capable of curing the disease if sick children get diagnosed early enough. But it is estimated that only about 1 in 3 children with pneumonia in developing countries receives antibiotics.
Two-year-old Wilmer is one example of how basic, low-cost programs can save children’s lives. Wilmer lives in a remote farming community high in the northern mountains of Nicaragua, six miles away from the nearest health facility. Like many children in that area, he has had recurrent bouts of pneumonia. Fortunately, his mother Maximina did not have to carry Wilmer miles over rocky, muddy roads to get medical care, because a volunteer community health worker trained and equipped by Save the Children was right there in her community to evaluate the little boy’s condition and provide antibiotics. Prompt attention from this health worker very likely spared Wilmer from a tragic death.
Working together we can stop the clock on pneumonia and save millions of children in the coming years.
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