Every 15 seconds, pneumonia claims the life of another child.
"I’m trying hard to raise public awareness… and accelerate the introduction of the vaccine into the developing world… every morning I go into the hospital and see kids dying of preventable diseases." — Dr. Samba Sow, Mali
Find out where GAVI provides pneumococcal vaccine.
Over one and a half million children die from all forms of pneumonia each and every year. Even in the U.S., more people die from pneumococcal disease than any other vaccine-preventable illness. Immunization is the most effective health intervention due to pneumococcal bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics. A single bacteria is responsible for up to half of these deaths. Streptococcus pneumonia bacteria causes the most common kinds of pneumonia. This bacteria invades the lungs causing pneumonia, fluids of the spinal cord and brain, causing meningitis, and the blood stream, causing blood poisoning.
Until recently parents and health care workers in the poorest countries were frustrated and saddened by the tragic loss of babies and young children. Now thanks to the availability of new pneumococcal vaccines, children everywhere, even in the poorest countries, can be inoculated against pneumonia for the first time.
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