Kristof: Pneumonia “The Killer No One Suspects”

May 11th, 2009 10:06 AM UTC
By Virginia Simmons

Nicholas Kristof advocated for more attention and funding for effective programs to combat pneumonia in the developing world in his Mother’s Day-themed New York Times Op-Ed yesterday.

Some excerpts below, the full piece here.

On this Mother’s Day, let’s not only reach for flowers and dinners but also think of how we might make motherhood itself a bit happier.

One answer would be to confront the disease that kills more children than any other around the world. Quick, what do you think that might be? Hint: It’s not diarrheal disease (the No. 2 killer), malaria, measles or AIDS…

Many Americans doubt whether foreign aid is effective, and it’s true that helping people is harder than it looks. Yet health programs have a particularly strong record (as do education and business-related initiatives like microfinance). One result of health campaigns is that the number of children dying by their fifth birthday has been cut in half since 1960, from 20 million annually to less than 10 million.

Children with AIDS and malaria already have advocates, so anyone looking for a cause should grab pneumonia and run with it. Think of it not as a grim and depressing initiative, but as potentially a happy turnaround opportunity, for these kids’ lives can be so breathtakingly easy to save.

-Virginia Simmons

TAGS: Mothers Day 2009, Policy News, pneumonia