The following is a summary of two opinion pieces addressing pneumonia.World Pneumonia Day was observed on Tuesday.

• Kolleen Bouchane, Huffington Post’s “Impact” blog: “[F]or all the beautiful things a child’s lungs can do, they also provide a breeding ground for many of the deadliest diseases affecting children: tuberculosis (TB), asthma, and pneumonia,” Kolleen Bouchane, director of ACTION, writes. She notes that “at the Union World Conference on Lung Health … only one session gathered experts across these three diseases, and only a handful of panels discussed pneumonia despite its status as the number one killer of children worldwide.” Bouchane states, “We need public and political will to ensure leaders at global and national levels work together to fight pneumonia in tandem with related child health threats” (11/13).
• Orin Levine, Huffington Post’s “World” blog: “As World Pneumonia Day 2013 is celebrated around the world today, I’m struck by the difference a decade has made in the control and prevention of pneumonia — particularly how far we’ve come in expanding access to pneumonia vaccines,” Levine, director of vaccine delivery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes. He highlights “the PneumoADIP project to accelerate access to pneumococcal vaccines — which prevent pneumococcal disease, the leading cause of bacterial pneumonia in children — in developing countries,” and states, “[W]ith the move this year to focus efforts on control and prevention of not one but two leading killers of children — pneumonia and diarrhea — I’m confident that we’ll make great strides in the next decade — so long as we all dedicate ourselves to the goal, even when the skeptics might tell us it can’t be done” (11/12).