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Pneumonia is the world's deadliest child killer, with a " forgotten epidemic " claiming one young life every 39 seconds, international health and children's agencies warned Tuesday. The disease is preventable but still kills more children -- 800,000 under the age of five last year -- than any other infection, they said in a statement to mark World Pneumonia Day. "Every day, nearly 2,200 children under the age of five die from pneumonia, a curable and mostly preventable disease," Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF, said in a joint statement. "Strong global commitment and increased investments are critical to the fight against this disease... Only through cost-effective protective, preventative and treatment interventions delivered to where children are will we be able to truly save millions of lives." The numbers make grim reading and compare with 437,000 under-fives dying last year due to diarrhoea and 272,000 to malaria. Re...

Business Standard : More than 1.7 million children in India are likely to die of pneumonia by 2030, despite the infection being easily treatable, a global study released on Monday has warned. The study, released on the occasion of the World Pneumonia Day, found that the infectious disease is likely to kill nearly 11 million children under five by 2030. Nigeria, India, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are likely to bear the highest burden of deaths, according to the report by UK-based non-profit Save the Children. The report also shows that more than four million of these deaths -- over a third -- could be easily averted with concerted action to improve rates of vaccination, treatment and nutrition. The disease is the biggest infectious killer for children globally, killing more than malaria , diarrhoea and measles combined. As many 880,000 children, mostly under the age of two, died from the disease in 2016, the most recent year for which full data...