Name the single biggest killer of kids around the world.
It’s probably not what you’re guessing…
Malaria kills @100,000 people of all ages each year (2010 data).
Tuberculosis kills @1.1 million people of all ages each year (2010 data).
AIDS kills @1.8 million people of all ages each year (2009 data).
Give up?
Think lungs. Chest infection. That awful sucking sound that I once heard coming from my then 3-year old son and still cannot forget, may never forget.
PNEUMONIA.
Pneumonia kills about 1.4 million kids under 5 every year around the world according to the World Health Organization. It kills more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined, accounting for 18% of all deaths of children under five.
The best way to prevent pneumonia? Immunizing kids – vaccines for Hib, pneumococcus, measles and whooping cough (pertussis).
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It must be terrrifying to hear that sound in your own child. It's easy for us to imagine that a mum in the third world somehow doesn't feel the same as we do – when of course she must feel just as terrified when she hears that, and with more reason.
Yes imagine her terror. Great point.