The invitations, decorations, candles and the cake – there’s a lot to remember when you organise a birthday party for a five-year-old. One thing we thankfully take for granted in Australia is that our five-year-olds reach this milestone at all.
But close to half a million children infected worldwide by the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae each year, never make it to their 5th birthday.
Like COVID-19, Streptococcus pneumoniae spreads in droplets when we cough or sneeze. It is responsible for deadly pneumonia, meningitis, sepsis or blood poisoning, as well as inner ear infections that commonly cause deafness in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
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Before the COVID-19 pandemic, S. pneumoniae was the leading cause of death by pneumonia globally. It accounted for more deaths than all other causes of pneumonia combined in 2016.
This is despite the widespread use of antibacterial agents, vaccines and antibiotics, to protect against S. pneumoniae infections. Our current vaccines provide limited protection, working against only a fraction of all strains of S. pneumoniae. The other challenge is that resistance to antibiotics is rapidly developing.
pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/arti...
Science Advances. Research Paper:
Recovering from pneumonia
Severe Scarring From Pneumonia
Recovering from Pneumonia 
Interstitial Idiopathic Pneumonia with Fibrosis
