At the foundation, I'm surrounded by a lot of people who take unusual pleasure in statistics. But this statistic should impress everybody: Pneumonia kills more kids than AIDS and malaria... Combined.
This week, before Davos, I traveled to Kenya, where the country just started rolling out a new vaccine for pneumonia. I wanted to actually see the difference the vaccine could make in people's lives.
I got a pretty good idea the second I walked into Mbagathi Hospital in Nairobi. They have about 50 beds -- and 200 patients. There is a courtyard attached to the hospital, where mothers and a few fathers cook their meals and sleep while they wait for their children to get better. The doctor showing me around told me that half of their patients come in with pneumonia. The conclusion was obvious: If Kenya does a good job making sure that children get the new pneumococcus vaccine, that by itself will start to alleviate the overcrowding.
It's really hard to see a child struggling to breathe. But there were several in the acute care ward when I visited. Some of them were on oxygen, but Mbagathi has a very limited supply, which they're forced to ration. Some children who could really benefit from oxygen don't get it. The doctor told me he wasn't sure if the really sick children would survive. It was hard to make eye contact with their mothers, who were looking on and stroking their children's foreheads.
Being in that room reinforced for me what a miracle vaccines can be. Pneumonia is such a terrible disease, but there is a new tool that can prevent many cases of it -- and prevent them rather easily. I hope other countries in Africa follow Kenya's lead and introduce this vaccine as soon as possible.
As I left the hospital, I passed by a very full recovery room. The children in that room weren't feeling their best, but they were on the mend. The mothers were beaming, because they knew they'd get to take their healthy children home soon.
That was a powerful reminder about why we do this work.