MTS48 - Keith Klugman - Pneumonia: The Hidden Giant

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In this podcast Carl Zimmer talks to Keith Klugman, William H. Foege Chair of Global Health at Emory University.

Dr. Klugman studies the disease that is the number one killer of children worldwide. If you guessed malaria or AIDS, you’d be wrong. It’s pneumonia. Two million children under five die every year from it every year--one child every 15 seconds.

Dr. Klugman and Carl spoke about Klugman's research on how pneumonia causes so much devastation, its hidden role in the 50 million deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic, and how a new pneumonia vaccine can stop the disease in its tracks. For more information on pneumonia and how we can all help fight it, visit the World Pneumonia Day web site.

Dr. Klugman's recent publications:

• A role for Streptococcus pneumoniaein virus-associated pneumonia (pdf)


• Levofloxacin-Resistant Invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae in the United States: Evidence for Clonal Spread and the Impact of Conjugate Pneumococcal Vaccine (pdf)