Only half (54%) of children in developing countries who get pneumonia see a qualified health worker, and less than a fifth (19%) are treated with antibiotics, a new report claims.

An action plan developed jointly by the World Health Organization and Unicef, which produced the report, has identified a package of interventions that the organisations say would prevent most deaths from pneumonia among children if they were implemented on a broad scale and reached the most vulnerable groups.

Ann Veneman, executive director of Unicef, said that pneumonia is the biggest killer of children aged under 5 years, with about 1.8 million deaths each year. She …