WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION AND PNEUMONIA

That this House calls on the World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board to highlight the importance of pneumonia at the Executive Board meeting in Geneva, 18 to 23 January 2010, by placing pneumonia on the agenda; further calls on members of the Executive Board to raise the issue of pneumonia and the devastating burden it has on the developing world; congratulates the work of the WHO and the UN for the work undertaken to date to fight the scourge of pneumonia which kills more than four million people every year, half of whom are children under the age of five; notes that one child dies every 15 seconds from pneumonia which kills more children under the age of five than measles, malaria, and AIDS combined, accounting for 20 per cent. of all deaths of children under the age of five worldwide; highlights the effective and available methods of preventing and treating pneumonia; further notes the need to increase access to these simple interventions; further notes the link between pneumonia and H1N1 deaths; and further calls on the global community to join the call for members of the WHO Executive Board to add pneumonia to the agenda for its meeting.