Hospitals in England recorded 56,000 child emergency admissions for pneumonia in 2018 – up more than 50% on 2008, according to analysis by Save the Children and Unicef published today (12 November 2019).
The figure equates to six children being taken to hospital with pneumonia every hour, with rates of admission highest in the poorest areas of the country. Last year, 27 children in England died from the disease.
Globally, pneumonia kills more children than any other disease, according to the charities, with 800,000 under-fives dying from the disease 201 – one child every 39 seconds.
Kevin Watkins, CEO of Save the Children, called for urgent global action to tackle the pneumonia crisis.
“These findings show pneumonia is a disease that affects the poorest children worst of all, wherever they are in the world,” he said.
“But while British children almost always survive, millions of children in poor countries are dying for want of vaccines, a few pence worth of antibiotics, and routine oxygen treatment. With such simple solutions, no child should have to die from pneumonia regardless of where they live.
“This is a forgotten global epidemic that demands an urgent international response. The UK government must continue to invest in global efforts to tackle the pneumonia crisis so that children everywhere can access life-saving healthcare.”
Nick Roseveare, interim executive director of Unicef UK, added: “We’re lucky in the UK that we have the NHS and a childhood vaccination programme which includes pneumonia and influenza, so fewer children get these illnesses in the first place.
“If they do get ill, most can be treated within our healthcare system. However, these findings show that for thousands of children outside of the UK pneumonia is not an illness of the past but a killer in the present that will continue to prematurely take children’s lives if we don’t act now.
“Pneumonia can be easily prevented and cured with simple, and cost-effective measures, yet it remains the main infectious cause of death among children under five globally. We can change this, we must change this. We have the knowledge, tools and power to save children from a preventable death.”
The two charities are calling on the future UK government to increase the proportion of its overseas aid spent on healthcare and pledge to ensure the replenishment of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which gives children in the poorest countries access to vaccines.
In January 2020, a group of nine leading health and children’s organisations will host world leaders at the Global Forum on Childhood Pneumonia in Spain – the first major summit on pneumonia for more than a decade.
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