Pneumonia is the biggest killer of children worldwide, but when it comes to fighting the deadly disease, the problem is not a lack of tools or knowledge, but access, experts say.

A combination of factors — including the respiratory infection’s ambiguous symptoms and a low rate of vaccination — contributes to the relatively slow decline of pneumonia.

Unfortunately, this is surprising to most people that pneumonia is the number one killer of children in the world.

UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and other research and technology organizations are now teaming up to jump-start global attention to lagging progress on the infection, which caused 16 percent of all deaths among children under five in 2016 alone.

Correctly diagnosing pneumonia can sometimes be the first challenge. When kids fall sick with pneumonia, they don’t always present flashing symptoms of the respiratory infection. The respiratory symptoms can often mask themselves as malaria.

Awareness is another issue. A small study in Mozambique in 2011 found that caretakers often thought it was possible to treat respiratory distress in their children at home.

Oxygen — along with antibiotics — is key to pneumonia treatment. If every child with pneumonia who reached a health facility received oxygen support it could make a huge difference in reducing infant mortality.

Read the full article on pneumonia by Amy Lieberman at Devex International Development