(November 12th is observed as the World Pneumonia Day – every 15 seconds, this preventable, treatable disease kills a child under the age of 5 years somewhere in the world. Pneumonia is the second largest killer of children in India after diarrhoea.)
There’s some good news with Children’s Day around the corner – globally the number of children dying under the age of 5 years has steadily declined over the last two decades, according to a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund.
On the home turf though, the news is tempered by the fact that more than three lakh children died from pneumonia and diarrheoa this year, that’s the highest in the world, more than Pakistan, Afghanistan, Haiti, sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.