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Pneumonia vaccine ‘to save thousands of lives’
"Pneumonia has been called the forgotten killer. It does not get the same attention as HIV/Aids or malaria. Yet it claims the lives of more young children worldwide than both of them combined. ”
- Fergus Walsh Medical correspondent, BBC News
A vaccine against pneumonia - the world's biggest killer of children - is being introduced in Africa and other poor countries across the world.
The Gavi Alliance, a global health partnership of public and private sectors for immunisation, says 19 countries will get the jab at first.
Pneumonia and diarrhoea account for a third of all deaths in young children in the developing world. Gavi and Save the Children say a comprehensive roll-out of the pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines could potentially prevent more than one million deaths annually.