HWN Suggests

Pneumonia: The Silent Killer

A complex disease, with many possible causes, compounded by a number of environmental risk factors, and deeply intertwined with a web of poverty, marginalisation and policy issues: pneumonia is exceptionally hard to tackle. No wonder progress to reduce its global burden has been slower than for other conditions. But in spite of those challenges, we believe this is a fight we can win.

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Featured

 Children With Pneumonia May Not Always Need Antibiotics

Doctors often prescribe an antibiotic for children with pneumonia, but a new study suggests the drugs are not always needed.

 How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives

Dr Chisti says that, as well as saving lives, his device has cut the hospital’s spending on pneumonia treatment by nearly 90%. The materials needed to make his version of a bubble-CPAP ventilator cost a mere $1.25. The device also consumes much less oxygen than a conventional ventilator.

Articles of Interest

Pediatric Pneumonia

Penicillin works well! Most children, even ones who require hospitalization, will benefit from a narrow spectrum penicillin.

Community-Acquired Pneumonia in Childhood

In all pediatric age groups excluding neonates, viral pathogens are the most common etiology of pneumonia, with S. pneumoniae as the most common typical bacterial pathogen. M. pneumoniae detection increases with increasing age, particularly in children 5 years and older. Treatment for presumed bacterial pneumonia should begin with narrow-spectrum beta-lactams but broadening to third-generation cephalosporins may be appropriate in certain situation...

A new pneumococcal vaccine is here! Why this matters

Each year, nearly 400,000 children under five years of age die globally from pneumococcal disease, mostly in Africa and Asia. WHO prequalification opens the door for this new vaccine, PNEUMOSIL®, to bolster the prevention toolkit and fulfill its purpose—to save more lives by enabling access that countries in these regions can afford and sustain long term.

A Vaccine Eliminated A Deadly Killer Of Infants. So Why Do Some People Fear It?

Prevnar, the vaccine against the pneumococcus bacterium, is one of the greatest pharmaceutical innovations of the past two decades. In children who are vaccinated, it eliminated most of the pneumonia and meningitis that bacteria causes. It proved so effective, in fact, that fewer pneumococcal infections occur in people over 65 who have never gotten the vaccine, because the germs are no longer circulating. It has, quite simply, changed the world for the better.

Childhood pneumonia: Everything you need to know

Many people associate pneumonia with the elderly, but it is actually the biggest infectious killer of children worldwide. Every year, it claims the lives of more than 700,000 children under the age of 5, including over 153,000 newborns, who are particularly vulnerable to infection.

Every Breath Counts. A Breath of Fresh Air for Pneumonia

However, a breath of fresh air is now revitalising efforts to combat pneumonia in the form of a new international coalition bringing together more than 30 international institutions, including the ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation—one of the most important and coherent philanthropic actors in the field of pneumonia—and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (http://www.isglobal.org/en).

Gasping for breath: pneumonia's deadly toll among the hungry children of Kenya

A disease that claims the lives of two children under five a minute worldwide has hit drought-stricken Kenya hard, its spread driven by malnutrition.

It’s time to go back to basics in the fight against childhood pneumonia

It is critical to provide children with basic human needs like adequate nourishment, access to clean water and air, and equitable access to vaccines and basic healthcare. The costs associated with improving children’s living conditions must be evaluated against the high costs associated with the clinical management of childhood pneumonia. The residual burden of pneumonia can be reduced by prioritising child health through simple interventions. These include improving living conditions and accessibility to affordable medication, vaccines and care.

Partnering To Fight Pneumonia, The ‘Forgotten Killer’ Of Children

We have “eradication” targets for polio, “elimination” targets for malaria, and “generation-free” targets for HIV/AIDS, but for a disease that kills more children under five than all three combined, we have…well…very little.

Pediatric Community-Acquired Pneumonia: Diagnosis and Management in the Emergency Department

The challenge for the emergency clinician is identifying the children who are more likely to have bacterial CAP and will benefit from antibiotic therapy while avoiding unnecessary testing and treatment in the majority of children who will have viral etiologies.

Pediatric Pneumonia in the ED

Viral pneumonias classically show perihilar bronchial thickening, interstitial opacities and hyperinflation. Bacterial pneumonias classically cause lobar consolidation.

Pneumonia - Africa’s silent killer

The last century has been witness to vast medical advancements that have saved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Yet recent figures show that in 2015 alone, nearly a million children died of pneumonia. It is both astounding and saddening that despite the availability of simple provisions that can both prevent and cure the disease, marginalised children are being denied access to the right drugs to save their lives.

Traffic fumes increase the risks of child pneumonia

Children who live near a main road are in greater danger of catching pneumonia because pollution from passing traffic damages their lungs. A leading expert in childhood breathing difficulties has made the link between exposure to particles from vehicle exhausts and a child's susceptibility to the chest infection, which can be fatal.

Why I fight pneumonia

Mark Alderson won’t rest easy until he solves one of the biggest problems in global health: a vaccine against pneumonia.

World Pneumonia Day – a decade on

In 2013, WHO and UNICEF released the Integrated Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea, which set a target of less than three child pneumonia deaths per 1,000 live births in every country by 2025.

Resources

Every Breath Counts Coalition

World’s first public-private partnership to support national governments to end preventable child pneumonia deaths by 2030.

Pneumonia Innovations Network

Aiming to achieve unprecedented levels of collaboration to improve the quality, availability, and affordability of pneumonia prevention, diagnostic and treatment innovations for children.

Stop Pneumonia

Stopping pneumonia isn’t about luck. It’s about action. Stop Pneumonia is an initiative that provides a voice for communities who suffer from the devastating consequences of the disease and who lack access to lifesaving interventions.