More Global Attention Should Be Given To Preventing Childhood Pneumonia

The Lancet Global Health: The disgraceful neglect of childhood pneumonia
Editorial Board

“…Why … is there so little cross-disciplinary global solidarity around childhood pneumonia? … [P]neumonia does not feature in WHO’s latest Global Programme of Work and … no major donor has made the cause their own. … In trying to explain the neglect, [Kevin Watkins and Devi Sridhar, authors of a recent commentary in The Lancet,] point to the poverty-linked nature of pneumonia, in children particularly, and the fact that — unlike cholera, measles, or HIV — it is not easily transmitted across social boundaries into the constituencies with the most political influence. They call for all high-burden countries to adopt integrated pneumonia action plans framed around the [Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (GAPPD)] and for a global summit on pneumonia. We concur. A child dying of pneumonia may be more difficult to imagine than one dying from inhaling visibly polluted air, but the solutions, in large part, are much closer at hand” (December 2018).

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

KFF Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone 202-347-5270

www.kff.org | Email Alerts: kff.org/email | facebook.com/KFF | twitter.com/kff

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news, KFF is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.