* In 2015, pneumonia accounted for 15 percent of all deaths to children under age 5 worldwide. An estimated 2,500 children a day die from pneumonia, most less than 2 years old. (UNICEF Aug. 2016) More children die from pneumonia than ebola, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and Zika combined. (WHO 2016)
* In the United States, nearly 500,000 children are hospitalized for acute lung infections annually, a third of them with pneumonia; 228 deaths occurred among those under age 5 in 2013. (CDC)
* The most common cause of bacterial pneumonia in children is Streptococcus pneumoniae; Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) is the second most common, both generally transmitted through coughing or sneezing.
* In 2010, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Prevnar 13 (PCV13) for routine vaccination of children 6 weeks to 5 years old for the prevention of 13 types of pneumococcal pneumonia; it replaced the earlier year 2000 version, PCV7. Between 2000 and 2015, the vaccines reduced the incident rate by between 60-90 percent in the United States (CDC) and 47 percent worldwide (UNICEF). 102.txt
