Of all the infectious diseases in the world, pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of both adults and children. Every year, millions of people die from pneumonia, including hundreds of thousands of children.

It’s such a big problem all over the world that the holiday World Pneumonia Day was created to raise awareness about it. The purpose of this holiday is to raise awareness about this illness, promote interventions to protect against and treat pneumonia, and encourage people to donate to organizations working to combat this disease.

The History of World Pneumonia Day

World Pneumonia Day was created in 2009 by the Stop Pneumonia Initiative. This initiative was launched to raise awareness of pneumonia because it’s a leading killer of children all over the world. Pneumonia remains a serious condition to this day. In 2019, this disease claimed the lives of 2.5 million people around the world, and approximately 672,000 of them were children.

Facts About Pneumonia

If there’s one thing that we can confidently say about pneumonia, it’s that it’s a disease that flies under the radar for many people. Many people think that it’s not that serious of a disease, when in fact, the opposite is true. To show everyone reading this just how awful a disease pneumonia can be, we decided to list some of the facts we’ve uncovered about it below.

• Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that can cause severe illness in anyone—no matter their age.
• The most common cause of bacterial pneumonia is Streptococcus pneumoniae.
• Viruses and fungi can also cause pneumonia in people.
• In the U.S., over 43,000 people die each year from pneumonia.
• Only about 68% of U.S. adults aged 65 or older receive the pneumococcal vaccine.
• Pneumonia accounts for 15% of all deaths of children under the age of 5 worldwide.
• Pneumonia can be treated with adequate nutrition, addressing environmental factors, and immunization.
• Only a third of children in the world with pneumonia receive the antibiotics they need.
• Parental smoking, burning of biomass fuels, cooking, and living in crowded homes can all contribute to a child’s susceptibility to pneumonia.
• Pneumonia symptoms may include excessive sweating, high fever, chills, chest pain, difficulty breathing, fatigue, and a cough that gets worse.

Observing World Pneumonia Day

If you want to observe this holiday, you can do so by first acknowledging that pneumonia is a serious condition with deadly outcomes for people all over the globe. The next thing that you can do is donate to organizations that work to eliminate this condition in people all over the world.

You can also visit StopPneumonia.org to learn more about this disease and what you can do to help. You can also spread the word about this holiday on social media using the hashtags #WorldPneumoniaDay, #StopPneumonia, and #EveryBreathCounts.