Pneumonia to kill 11m children by 2030

PARIS - Pneumonia will kill nearly 11 million children under 5 by 2030, experts warned on Monday - a global day aimed at raising awareness of the biggest infectious killer of infants worldwide.

While in the developed world the severe lung infection mainly affects the elderly, in developing nations it is children who bear the brunt, with hundreds of thousands dying each year from the easily preventable disease.

More than 880,000 children - mainly aged under 2 years old - died from pneumonia in 2016 alone.