Severe pneumonia leaves an estimated 4.2 million children under the age of five in 124 low- and middle-income countries with critically low oxygen levels each year, new analysis from UNICEF, Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Save the Children and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), has revealed.
Pneumonia is caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, and leaves children fighting for breath as their lungs fill with pus and fluid. Severe pneumonia affects more than 22 million young children in low- and middle-income countries each year and kills more than malaria, measles and diarrhoea combined. “COVID-19 has infected millions of people and rendered difficult global conditions for children even worse,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “While the world grapples with the pandemic and the severe consequences it poses for the most vulnerable, we must not lose sight of the fact that pneumonia continues to claim more than 2,000 young lives every day. Medical oxygen can help save some of these lives.”
The agencies say the COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions to health services threaten to be a further blow in the battle against the world’s biggest infectious killer of children, which already claims the lives of over 800,000 children under the age of five each year. Medical oxygen could save the lives of many children with severe pneumonia, coupled with antibiotics. But in many places, oxygen to treat a child with severe pneumonia over 3-4 days can cost at least £30-45. For the poorest families, that bill represents a huge barrier to treatment – if the child can get to a health facility with functioning oxygen and trained health workers at all, which are often scarce in poorer countries.
Following the onset of the pandemic, worsening shortages and rising prices of oxygen have been reported in countries with some of the highest numbers of child pneumonia deaths, such as India, Bangladesh and Nigeria. According to the World Health Organisation, the poorest countries may currently have just five to 20% of the medical oxygen they need, overall.
In a commentary published in the Lancet on World Pneumonia Day, which falls on Nov. 12, global health agencies including Save the Children and UNICEF call for governments and donors to build on the investment and efforts made to respond to COVID-19 to strengthen health systems that can tackle childhood pneumonia.
World Pneumonia Day was established by the Stop Pneumonia Initiative in 2009 to raise awareness about the toll of pneumonia, a leading killer of children around the world, and to advocate for global action to protect against, help prevent and effectively treat this deadly illness.
