World Pneumonia Day is a global initiative that helps to bring Pnemonia, a health crisis to the attention of the general public and encourages policy makers and grassroots organizers alike to combat the disease.

Pneumonia is a preventable and treatable disease that sickens 155 million children under 5 and kills 1.6 million each year. This makes pneumonia the number 1 killer of children under 5, claiming more young lives than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Yet most people are unaware of pneumonia’s overwhelming death toll.

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Affordable vaccines
Affordable treatment and prevention options exist in spite of the disease's massive death toll.

There are effective vaccines against the two most common bacterial causes of deadly pneumonia, Haemophilus influenzae type B and Streptococcus pneumoniae, and most common viral cause of pneumonia, Orthomyxoviridae. A course of antibiotics which costs less than $1(US) is capable of curing the disease if it is started early enough.