There's a well-known quote: "Pneumonia is the old person's friend." This means that an older person who is in very ill health and would like to pass on is sometimes helped along by pneumonia.

So it was a bit of a surprise to receive this news release today from the Centers for Disease Control. It reports that pneumonia kills more children than any other illness. Approximately 9 million children aged 5 years and under die each year worldwide and 1.6 million die from pneumonia.

There is a vaccination.

World Pneumonia Day, Nov. 12, will raise awareness of this killer and ways to prevent it.

 

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