Pneumonia kills more children than HIV/AIDS, diarrhoea, malaria combined

'Every Breath Counts' is a new UNICEF campaign to raise awareness of the global burden of pneumonia, targeting world leaders and policy makers. The global campaign focuses its initial efforts in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where 84% cent of childhood pneumonia deaths occur.

Pneumonia kills nearly 1 million children under the age of five globally every year, which is more than from HIV/AIDS, diarrhoea and malaria combined. Despite some reductions in global pneumonia mortality, progress in the highest-burden countries remains slow. Furthermore, progress in the fight against pneumonia has been slow, compared to progress in other leading diseases.

Over the past 15 years, childhood pneumonia deaths have fallen by 50%. While this signifies impressive progress, it still falls short in comparison to an 85% decline for measles and 60% for malaria, AIDS and tetanus over the same period. The issue is partly one of financing, relative to disease burden. For every global health dollar spent in 2011, only 2 cents went to pneumonia.

The campaign has been initiated in order to raise awareness around the burden of pneumonia and to galvanise the world to eliminate this preventable and treatable disease of poor and marginalised children. Its launch features the campaign's first ambassador, Aisha Muhammadu Buhari, wife of the President of Nigeria.

The two-year campaign will bring pneumonia to the attention of world leaders, policy makers and donors. It will highlight the need to mobilise resources to reduce pneumonia mortality. It will also call for specific policies such as prevention through immunisation and reduction of household air pollution, protection through exclusive breastfeeding and by facilitating community access to effective, timely diagnosis and treatment with amoxicillin and oxygen.

By mobilising public health professionals, environmental groups and government officials through the campaign, it will build cross sectoral momentum against the disease. The newly launched campaign website highlights the celebrity and thought leaders that are speaking out for pneumonia.

With 31,000 childhood pneumonia deaths estimated for 2015, Ethiopia is among the countries in Africa with the highest proportion of childhood deaths caused by pneumonia. To address this, UNICEF works with the Federal Ministry of Health to expand community access to health. A persistent gap seems to be in household awareness of the symptoms of pneumonia, leading to low care seeking. This campaign will raise household awareness and catalyse action around pneumonia across all walks of life.