Survival: Lives in the Balance
The Struggle to Breathe (Philippines) (1 of 4) (#101)
Nineteen-month old Nazario can barely breathe. He has pneumonia, the world's number one child killer. Nazario has been coughing for weeks. Burns scar the toddler's chest where a traditional healer splattered hot wax to ward off evil spirits. The build up of fluid in Nazario's lungs and chest cavity have pushed his windpipe and his heart across his body. His parents have finally taken him to the hospital. They have never heard of pneumonia, even though in the Philippines one in every five children under the age of five suffers from the disease. World wide, pneumonia kills two million children every year. Now throughout the Philippines, every day people are armed with training to help parents recognize pneumonia in time to provide life-saving treatment. [50 minutes]
This episode has not aired in the past few months on Iowa Public Television.
Series Description: Millions of people in the developing world, mostly children, die each year from treatable and preventable diseases. Slowly, that is beginning to change as economic growth lifts hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty and the circumstances known to perpetuate disease. SURVIVAL: LIVES IN THE BALANCE is a landmark documentary series about global health. Four one-hour films take viewers into villages in the Philippines, Uganda, Niger and Bangladesh, where people suffer from diseases and conditions long since conquered in other parts of the world. Cameras following subjects from pregnancy to birth, through the formative years of a child's development and into adulthood to capture the pain of loss and witness the triumph of hope.
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