Saving Children from Pneumonia in East and Southern Africa: East & Southern Africa Lessons from our Pneumonia Centenary Commitment

Globally, pneumonia kills over 700,000 children every year. It is the leading infectious cause of death for children under-five. Pneumonia remains a neglected disease and has been called a “global cause without champions”. Thus, progress has been slow in ending child deaths from pneumonia, and this is putting the achievement of the SDG for under-five mortality in jeopardy.
Save the Children shares the SDG ambition that, by 2030, no child will die from preventable causes before their fifth birthday. Our organization has committed to tackling pneumonia head-on. We are doing this through a strategy that goes to the heart of the problem: targeting the systemic failings that allow more children to die of pneumonia than any other infectious disease.