Integrated action for the prevention and control of pneumonia and diarrhoea

The UN Secretary-General's widely endorsed Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health aims to save 16 million lives through a "continuum of care" approach; a Global Vaccine Action Plan is working towards universal access to immunisation by 2020; more than 170 countries have signed on to A Promise Renewed, the call to action spearheaded by the Governments of Ethiopia and India, UNICEF, and USAID to end all preventable child deaths by 2035; and the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children is helping to improve access to priority medicines. In this context, it is critical to intensify efforts to tackle pneumonia and diarrhoea--the two biggest killers of children younger than 5 years after the newborn period, which account for about 29% of all under-5 deaths.1 A new WHO/UNICEF Integrated Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia and Diarrhoea5 aims to help countries meet this goal by establishing healthy environments to protect children from pneumonia and diarrhoea and by increasing access to cost-effective interventions for both prevention and treatment.