The All Party Parliamentary Group for Global Action Against Childhood Pneumonia is a cross-party group of MPs and Peers in the UK Parliament at Westminster.

APPG Mission Statement

The aim of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Global Action Against Childhood Pneumonia (APPG) is to raise awareness of the global disease burden of childhood pneumonia and to increase access to effective prevention and treatment interventions such as vaccines, effective use of antibiotics and education around the disease.

Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of child mortality worldwide, causing over 1.5 million child deaths each year.

Many of these deaths could be averted with the use of simple vaccines and effective treatments.  Without a concerted effort on behalf of the global community, pneumonia will continue to claim the lives of millions of children each year.

In support of the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP, issued Nov. 2009 by WHO and UNICEF) the APPG aims to fight pneumonia by standing with other international organisations to;

1. Protect children with exclusive breastfeeding for six months, adequate nutrition, prevention of low-birth-weight, reductions of indoor air pollution, and increases in hand-washing
2. Prevent disease with vaccination against its causes: measles, pertussis, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae type b, as well as preventing and treating HIV in children and providing zinc for children with diarrhea
3. Treat children with the right care and antibiotics in communities, health centers and hospitals

The Parliamentarians that constitute the APPG work to raise awareness about pneumonia and extend the aims of Protection, Prevention and Treatment amongst their colleagues nationally, across Europe and around the world.

Investing in pneumonia and prevention would contribute to achieving the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal of reducing child deaths by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.  The hope is that healthy children will, in turn, benefit from education and contribute to improved and more robust economic growth in developing countries.

The APPG was formed as a transition from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pneumococcal Disease Prevention in the Developing World, originally launched on 23rd January 2007 in response to the urgent need to improve child survival and tackle the devastating impact of pneumococcal disease in the developing world. Pneumococcal Disease and Hib are the main causes of bacterial pneumonia.

The APPG aims to achieve its goals by working closely with civil society, academia, international organisations and industry.