Devex: Opinion: 3 ways to end preventable child deaths from pneumonia
Marian Blondeel, senior communications specialist at the Malaria Consortium

“Pneumonia is the deadliest infectious disease among children under the age of five worldwide — more than HIV, tuberculosis, Zika, Ebola, and malaria combined. … Shockingly, these deaths can be largely prevented as the disease can be easily detected and treated. Despite recent mobilization of funding and targeted interventions by donors, nongovernmental organizations, and the private and public sectors between 2005 and 2015, much more needs to be done to end preventable child deaths by 2030. What do we need to do? 1. Protect … 2. Detect … 3. Treat … Investing in child health by preventing, detecting, and treating pneumonia will not only support the achievement of the global goal for good health and wellbeing. It will also have knock-on effects on other goals for clean air and water, economic stability, equality, clean energy, and eliminating poverty and hunger” (11/10).

HuffPost: Pneumonia — Africa’s silent killer
Toyin Ojora Saraki, founder of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa

“…The developing world urgently needs more, and better allocated resources, to avoid … unnecessary deaths from illnesses as curable and preventable as pneumonia. This will require revolutionizing health care systems, many of which are stuck in cycles of underfunding and understaffing, at the expense of human life. … Solid and effective systems of universal primary health care would not just positively impact pneumonia, but would have widespread implications for the spread of other infectious and non-communicable diseases across the continent. Pneumonia is a symptom of the wider health care deficit that sees the unnecessary deaths of millions of people each year. Through the implementation of universal primary health care, we have the power to ensure that no more children die unnecessarily at the hands of preventable and treatable diseases like pneumonia. We must act now…” (11/10).