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Six children in England rushed to hospital for pneumonia every hour

PNEUMONIA hospitalises six children every hour in England, a report reveals today.

In 2018, 27 children in England died from pneumonia, according to the global report by charities Save the Children and Unicef.

Hospitals across the country recorded 56,000 child emergency admissions for the disease last year, a jump of more than 50 per cent compared to a decade ago.

Rates of admission were highest in poorer parts of the country, the report found.

Mother of eight-year-old Edward, Catherine Sage, said her son woke up in the night “gasping for air.”

She said: “He was making a sound I’d never heard him make before. It was really scary. I knew people were hospitalised for pneumonia but I thought it was only really old people.”

About 96 per cent of the British public do not know that pneumonia is the biggest child killer globally, the poll found.

The charities are urging the future British government to increase the proportion of its overseas aid spent on healthcare and step up the fight against malnutrition as the most significant driver of childhood pneumonia.

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