New Report Card Reveals 15 Countries where Urgent Action is Needed against Pneumonia

Pneumonia is the world's leading infectious killer of young children, taking the lives of nearly 1.6 million children under age five every year - more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Yet, safe and effective vaccines exist to provide protection against the primary causes of pneumonia deaths.

Tomorrow, November 12th, is World Pneumonia Day and coinciding with the celebration is the release of the Pneumonia Report Card by Johns Hopkins' International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) on behalf of the Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia. The Pneumonia Report Card reveals where urgent efforts are needed to reach target levels of coverage for the life-saving interventions that can prevent, protect against and treat pneumonia in children.

The coverage of protection, prevention and treatment interventions - outlined in WHO and UNICEF's Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP) almost exactly one year ago - were compiled in the Report Card for the 15 countries with the most child pneumonia deaths. According to GAPP, up to two-thirds of child pneumonia deaths - one million annually - could be prevented if at least 90 percent of children had access to a few simple pneumonia interventions.

The 15 countries evaluated in the Report Card - including Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania and Uganda - account for nearly three-quarters of all pneumonia deaths worldwide. Children in these countries are anywhere from 17 to 400 times more likely to die of pneumonia than a child living in the United States.

Although GAPP recommended that all countries reach 90 percent coverage on pneumonia interventions by 2015 in order to reach Millennium Development Goals targets for child survival, the Report Card finds that country scores range from a high of 61 percent to a low of 23 percent on these measures combined - all well below GAPP targets.

The Pneumonia Report Card is a positive step towards informing the public and their policy makers of what can be done to assist countries where the burden of this forgotten killer is most profound. "For the first time, we have a report tracking global progress against pneumonia, the leading killer of children worldwide. I'm optimistic that the report will help focus efforts on improving coverage and saving millions of lives," said Orin Levine, Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Many of the most affected countries plan to introduce new pneumonia vaccines, are expanding community-based case management and have ambitious plans for strengthening health systems. Going from planning to implementation requires funding and continued public attention to pneumonia. Our children deserve nothing less."

With support from the GAVI Alliance, introductions from Hib and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines are expected to occur in the next five years in nearly all of these countries. To read the full Pneumonia Report Card, please visit: http://www.jhsph.edu/ivac/pneumoniareportcard.pdf.