On Nov. 12, 2009, the Global Coalition against Child Pneumonia was established to raise awareness about the toll of pneumonia, the world’s leading killer of children, and to advocate for global action to protect against, effectively treat and help prevent this deadly disease.

The Coalition is a global network of more than 125 NGOs, community-based organizations, academic institutions, government agencies and foundations who together provide leadership for World Pneumonia Day, marked each year on November 12 to encourage efforts to combat the disease among donors, policy makers, healthcare professionals and the general public.

Fortunately, many interventions are now available to reduce deaths due to pneumonia among children throughout the world. In 2010, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, together with many global experts and partners, launched the Global Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP)

Pneumonia continues to be the leading killer of young children around the world, causing ≈14% of all deaths in children 1 month to 5 years of age. It is a critical disease for countries to conquer in order to reach Millennium Development Goal 4: reducing the child mortality rate by two thirds from 1990 to 2015).

Most children who die from pneumonia live in developing countries, where such factors as malnutrition, crowding, and lack of access to quality health care increase the risk for death. Pneumonia kills few children in industrialized countries, although it remains among the top 10 causes of deaths in the United States, for example, because of deaths in older adults.