Pneumonia

Table of Contents

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Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
Established in 2009, World Pneumonia Day is marked every year on November 12th
The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health summit is to be hosted by India in December.

Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of deaths in children U5 years old despite being easily preventable and treatable.
Although vaccines and other preventative efforts are decreasing the burden of the disease, much more work is still required.

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung affecting primarily the small air sacs known as alveoli. Typically symptoms include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and trouble breathing. Pneumonia is usually caused by infection with viruses or bacteria and less commonly by other microorganisms.

Menace of Pneumonia

A report by Save the Children (“Fighting for Breath”) showed that pneumonia kills two children in this age group every minute — more than malaria, diarrhoea and measles combined.
More than 80% of victims have weakened immune systems caused by malnutrition or insufficient breastfeeding and unable to fight the infection.
In 2016, pneumonia was the leading cause for under-five deaths in India, and more than 25 million children under the age of two were found not immunized with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.
The number of unvaccinated children in the 0-2 age range in developing countries is estimated to be at around 170 million, with India dominating.

Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Summit

- The Forum will be hosted by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) this December.
- India has performed better than rest of the world in this field and the number of children dying under-five years has fallen by 30 per cent since 2012, from 1.4 million to 989,000.
- According to a new report by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), under-five mortality rate in India was recorded below one million in 2017 for the first time in five years. India will get an opportunity to present its success story in improving the maternal and child health (indicators) at a world stage

Causes

Caused by air pollution
Indoor Pollution is worsening the Situation

Way Forward

It is a well known that exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months acts as an effective vaccine and continued breastfeeding with the gradual introduction of complementary food is another riskreducer.
Necessitates multi-sectoral action plans.
Concerted action by the government, backed by civil society, corporates and communities can help save children’s lives, but we need to move fast.
A Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV)
This year, India would be presenting Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) as a success story at the fourth edition of Partners’ Forum 2018 on 12th and 13th December 2018 in New Delhi.