pneumonia
Bill Roedy, former CEO of MTV, explains why he is passionate in the fight to end pneumonia, a preventable disease.
As a music lover and former CEO of MTV Networks International, I’ve spent decades trying to give voice to young people struggling for creative freedom. More recently though I’ve also taken to a new cause: the struggle of babies and children in poor countries just to survive.
Few people can even name the leading global killer of young children — it’s pneumonia — and it claims a child’s life every 20 seconds. Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of these deaths take place in the developing world where access to health prevention and care is sometimes complicated.
(more…)
With World Pneumonia Day coming up on November 12, there are so many things you can do to help spread awareness using social media. Here are some of our favorite tools, videos and resources on the deadly disease that we found around the web.
Certainly the funniest vaccine video I’ve ever seen…via GAVI:
(more…)
Just how much do Americans know about vaccines? I hit the streets of Washington, D.C. — specifically, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — to ask passersby whether they know what the two biggest killers of children are in the developing world. Watch the video below and see what folks had to say…and don’t make fun of my wacky interviewing style too much!
Man on the Street with Malaka: Vaccines from ONE Campaign on Vimeo.
Although I interviewed just a small number of people, it was clear that most people had no idea what the answers were: diarrhea and pneumonia. It’s crazy that those two illnesses are a major cause of death for children under the age of five in poor countries. When I was a tiny tot, I got pneumonia a couple of times — but because of modern hospitals and treatments, it never escalated to the point of being life-threatening or anything like that. If I was born in a country in sub-Saharan Africa and that happened to me, I probably wouldn’t be here today.
That’s why vaccines are so incredibly, incredibly important for children in the developing world. Just a few doses can provide a lifetime of protection and a chance for a healthy start in life. With the help of vaccines, we’ve been able to beat polio by 99 percent and completely eradicate smallpox. Imagine if every child in the world was immunized against pneumonia (which, by the way, kills more people than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined) and diarrhea — we could save millions of lives.
As we’ve been hinting for weeks, ONE will be launching a huge action around vaccines sometime soon. But before we officially introduce the petition to you, my plan (as your trusty editor of the ONE Blog) is to make sure you know everything you need to know about vaccines.
Although vaccines may not be the sexiest subject in the world, they have the incredible power to stop two of the biggest killers of children in poor countries: diarrhea and pneumonia, two completely preventable diseases.
So, over the next few weeks, keep an eye out for posts in our new series, “The Power of Vaccines.” Hopefully, they’ll help explain why vaccines are one of the most powerful health interventions ever developed, why we should invest in them and how we can get vaccines to the people who need them the most.
There will be guest posts from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH and GAVI. There will be something about Alaska and dogs, although I want that to be a surprise so I won’t say too much more on that. And there will be a chance for you to pick our global health expert Todd Summers’ brain a little bit.
Either way, stay tuned to the ONE Blog for more updates. On Friday, I’ll be sharing a few man-on-the-street interviews that I conducted in front of the White House. They’re kind of embarrassing…but I think you’ll love it. Meanwhile, take a look at the video above — it traces one rotavirus vaccine’s path through Nicaragua.
Hon. Njingum Musa Mbutoh, member of the Finance Committee in the National Parliament of Cameroon, urges activists across the world to get excited about a new, life-saving pneumococcal vaccine.
This morning in Kenya, I had an exciting preview to an event we’re anticipating in my country, Cameroon, later on this year. Specifically, I joined the president of Kenya and other leaders for the celebration of the introduction of a new vaccine against the leading cause of pneumonia.
In Kenya today, there is a big momentum with the introduction of pneumococcal vaccine. Almost 1,000 people were gathered to celebrate the roll-out of this new vaccine. In Cameroon, we hope to gather even more! I can’t wait to see Cameroonian kids getting vaccinated and protected for life from a disease that kills over a million people every year worldwide.
In both, Kenya and Cameroon, pneumonia is a leading child-killer. Pneumonia is the number one killer of children under five worldwide and very few people know about it. There is too little awareness and knowledge about the enormous burden of pneumonia among young children in Africa, and we need to change this.
(more…)
Tomorrow, the BBC will be at the Langata Health Center in Nairobi to do a story on the new pneumococcal vaccine now being given here, although the official vaccine launch is not until Valentine’s Day. ONE photographer Morgana Wingard and I are there today, so we fully intend to take credit for scooping the BBC.
Babies at Langata Health Facility in Nairobi receive the pneumococcal vaccine
Here’s why this new vaccine is so important: In the developing world, pneumonia kills in the neighborhood of 1.4 million kids every year. Pneumococcal, the deadliest strain of that illness (and a major cause of what we might call “regular” pneumonia), kills 800,000. Call me crazy, but this new vaccine to prevent pneumococcal is a Really. Big. Deal.
(more…)
Helen Evans, interim CEO of the GAVI Alliance, reports on the introduction of a new pneumonia vaccine to Managua, Nicaragua.
Greetings from Nicaragua! On Sunday, I joined Minister of Health Dr. Sonia Castro Gonzalez, GAVI board member Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez Gonzalez and my colleagues from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and UNICEF to witness the vaccination of the first child with the new vaccine that protects children in developing countries against the worst forms of pneumonia — the biggest single killer of children under five years worldwide.
Minister of Health Dr. Sonia Castro Gonzalez vaccinates 10-week-old Caleb Alexander Martinez against pneumococcal disease as he is held by his mother Rosa Elia Obando. Photo courtesy of GAVI.
(more…)
