Common bacteria prevent kids from reaching school age

MANILA, Philippines - A killer is on the loose and it targets everyone, especially those most unable to protect themselves: infants and children.

The Streptococcus pneumoniae — a common pathogen that causes approximately one million deaths among preschoolers around the world every year, according to World Health Organization estimates — can be transmitted through contaminated droplets in the air.

Bacterial pneumonia starts innocuously enough: an infected person’s sneeze or cough releases illness-causing germs into the air. Those infectious organisms enter a susceptible host, such as a child with underdeveloped or weak immune system, colonizing his lungs and causing serious illness.

In some instances, by the time the family decides that the child needs serious medical care, the disease has already progressed to an advanced, deadly stage.

Despite the fact that the leading cause of pneumonia occurs worldwide, there is still a significant “lack of mass awareness of the disease and its gravity and implications,” says Dr. Fatima Gimenez of Pfizer Philippines. 

Illness of any kind is cause for alarm but childhood pneumonia in developing countries can be particularly catastrophic.

Gimenez provides a context for understanding the dreaded disease: “The Asian region is home to 600 million children living in poverty. A considerable number die from malnutrition, diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malaria, and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Among respiratory tract infections, the most common would be pneumonia.”

Vaccines can protect people against Streptococcus pneumoniae but they represent a “considerable cost in a setting where majority of the population live in poverty,” says Gimenez.

This is why disease prevention usually takes a back seat for many Filipino families who barely have enough to eat. And yet pre-exposure vaccines remain the best option, given that antibiotics and hospital treatments are very expensive.

To underscore the importance of an affordable solution against a preventable, costly disease, the Pfizer Philippines Foundation has initiated a free anti-pneumonia vaccination drive all over the country.

The foundation has reached many disadvantaged barangays, protected schoolchildren aged five to eight through immunization, and lectured to youths and their guardians and to local government units about post-vaccination care and general respiratory health. The outreach efforts have been well-received by the beneficiary communities.

There is hope hidden in the fact that the disease is considered the top vaccine-preventable cause of death in the planet. Last year, the World Pneumonia Day was launched to mobilize international communities to campaign for better policies concerning the respiratory illness.

The annual event was joined by coalitions of government and non-government organizations and private corporations campaigning to equip and link ordinary people and donor groups against killer pneumonia.

In Asia, the Philippines is already part of an organization of healthcare professionals from 12 countries in the region, called the Asian Strategic Alliance for Pneumococcal Disease Prevention or ASAP, that promotes increased disease awareness and the importance of prevention through advocacy and surveillance.

Another Philippine involvement in international efforts is the Global Action Plan in the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia or GAPP, which promotes breastfeeding, hand washing, avoidance of smoking and indoor pollution, effective immunization, and timely adequate treatment with inexpensive antibiotics.

The current statistics are urgent: about 75 percent of childhood pneumonia worldwide occurs in 15 countries in which the Philippines ranks 10th.

“There is a need to strengthen bonds with existing health agencies, coupled with strong political back-up for the cause,” says Gimenez, to make immunizing against pneumonia a national health priority.

The World Pneumonia Day is only on its second year and it is hoped that the event becomes an opportunity for pondering action. Local activities to commemorate World Pneumonia Day tomorrow include awareness sessions at SM City San Lazaro like storytelling, art workshop, and free immunization for children, and a lecture on disease vigilance for parents from urban poor communities, as well as free mass vaccination missions in select barangays in Metro Manila.

To help prevent pneumonia, ask a doctor about the broadest coverage pneumococcal conjugate vaccine available in the market today.