This World Pneumonia Day, 12th November, awareness and action center around the theme, ‘Stop Pneumonia/Every Breath Counts’ to reduce the burden in India. Timely diagnosis, such as through point-of-care rapid testing, can quickly guide targeted treatment delivery by care providers, enabling better patient outcomes. This is the key to enhanced pneumonia patient care.
Pneumonia, an acute respiratory infection, is a recognized public health emergency in India. It is associated with an annual mortality rate of roughly 2.5 million adults and children globally. India alone accounts for 23 per cent of the global pneumonia burden. In 2018, 9,28,485 people were affected by pneumonia nationwide. At 16.9%, it also forms the second highest cause of infant mortality in India. Caused by virus, bacteria or fungi, pneumonia inflames the air sacs in one or both lungs, making breathing painful by limiting oxygen intake. The most common cause of bacterial pneumonia is streptococcus pneumoniae.
Dr. Sanjay Choudhary, Senior Consultant, Pediatrics at Fortis Escorts Hospital Jaipur said, Pneumonia is the number one killer amongst children who are less than 5 years of age. With the beginning of winters, the cases usually see a huge rise in our country so we need to upgrade our manpower, staff, medication for which we need to upgrade ourselves and we need to spread awareness which is why World Pneumonia Day is observed. The awareness is not much around pneumonia since cough and cold are common problems in children. There are around six to eight episodes of average occurrence in children in the first few years of life, people believe it’s mere cough and cold, but when it gets severe and gets diagnosed later, it gets difficult.
With the help of vaccines, including the recent pneumococcal vaccine drive, we have been able to spread more awareness and such incidents have decreased. Severity indicators which can be observed at home are fast breathing, dull baby, poor feeding or refusing to take feed. COVID too is a reason for Pneumonia, but that’s more common in adults and not that severe in children.
