Pneumonia to kill nearly 11million children by 2030, study warns

Doctors treat a child in Ivory Coast, where pneumonia is second only to malaria as a killer of infants. [AFP]

Pneumonia will kill nearly 11 million children under five by 2030, experts warned Monday on a global day aimed at raising awareness of the biggest infectious killer of infants worldwide.

While in the developed world the severe lung infection mainly affects the elderly, in developing nations it is children who bear the brunt, with hundreds of thousands dying each year from the easily preventable disease.