Pneumonia now 4th leading cause of death in Philippines — PHAP
By Jel Santos
Published Oct 23, 2025 02:48 pm
(MB FILE PHOTO)
Pneumonia, a preventable disease, has become the country’s fourth leading cause of death, killing 46,000 Filipinos as of July 31, the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) reported on Thursday, Oct. 23.
According to the association, pneumonia has claimed 46,718 lives, accounting for 6.7 percent of all deaths nationwide as of July this year.
“For years, sustained immunization efforts helped keep pneumonia lower on the list of top causes of death, ranking only 7th until 2021. But by 2024, pneumonia had risen to 4th place and, in the same year, the benefit packages for moderate to severe pneumonia topped claims from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth),” it noted.
Dr. Rontgene Solante, a leading infectious-disease specialist in the country, said pneumonia is a “highly preventable disease” that “should not be claiming this many lives anymore.”
“Pneumonia’s resurgence should remind us that we must stay consistent with our efforts, especially as diseases like this are so easily prevented with vaccines,” he stressed.
Likewise, PHAP Executive Director Teodoro Padilla underscored the vital role of vaccination in combating pneumonia to save lives, adding that immunization poses less financial strain and can protect entire communities.
“There were 648,355 pneumonia benefit claims from January 1 to December 31, 2024, which totaled ₱11,914,876,697 in health costs that could have been avoided with timely vaccinations,” he said in a statement.
The association emphasized that pneumonia vaccines protect people across all life stages.
Per World Health Organization (WHO), vaccines can help prevent pneumonia.
WHO said pneumonia is as a form of acute respiratory infection most commonly caused by viruses or bacteria, which can range from mild to life-threatening in people of all ages.
It said pneumonia remains the single largest infectious cause of death in children worldwide, killing more than 808,000 children under 5 years old in 2017, accounting for 15 percent of all deaths in that age group.