REDUCING exposure to indoor air pollution, ensuring adequate nutrition, promoting immunization, avoiding smoking near children, and improving housing conditions are among the ways to prevent pneumonia, the World Health Organization said.In a post on Facebook on Sunday, WHO said it has intensified efforts to raise awareness about preventing pneumonia in children.'Pneumonia is the single largest infectious cause of death in children.
The symptoms include persistent cough, rapid and labored breathing, retraction of the skin around the ribs and breastbone, flaring nostrils, chest pain especially when coughing or breathing deeply, wheezing, and a bluish tint to the lips or nails due to reduced oxygen levels in the bloodstream.Last year, pneumonia was the leading infectious disease killer of children, claiming the lives of over 700,000 children under the age of five — equivalent to around 2,000 deaths each day.