Poverty & Pneumonia

Pneumonia often strikes those who have weakened immune systems. In poor countries, where countless children die of pneumonia, their immune systems are compromised. But why is this so?
The answer is that it is because they live in poverty – be it a consequence of malnutrition, unsanitary conditions, or poor environmental conditions. The conclusion to be drawn, in a sense, is that poverty is the disease. Poverty is what makes the people in these poor countries prone to this disease.
Consider that 11 million children under the age of 5 die each year because of preventable diseases and malnutrition. Children without food are children without a strong immune system, unable to defend themselves against diseases. According to the World Food Program (WFP), malnutrition is one of the causes of death for 10 million children under five. It is estimated that 53% of deaths in children under the age of 5 are due to undernutrition. The following chart shows the percentage of deaths that are ultimately caused by malnutrition:

According to the WFP, there are two types of acute hunger. Acute hunger or starvation is the result of emergencies, such as wars or natural disasters – however, “emergencies account for just eight percent of hunger’s victims”. Daily undernourishment affects many more people – where people are chronically hungry and live on less than the 2,100 recommended calories a day. Every minute, 21 children die somewhere in the world because of malnutrition related causes. This is one of the reasons that 5-10% of children in developing countries will develop pneumonia each year (amounting to 154 million cases of pneumonia in children in developing countries each year), why 2 million of these children under age 5 will die, and why pneumonia is associated with 15-40% of all childhood deaths.
http://worldtodayshow.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/poverty-and-pneumonia-and-malnutrition/