icddr,b scientist Dr Md Jobayer Chisti has been awarded a People’s Choice Award for the most promising childhood pneumonia innovation, after receiving more than 1000 votes in an online global voting competition on Facebook.
He received the award at the Pneumonia Innovations Summit in New York on 12 November 2015, where he also presented his low-cost technology for providing oxygen to infants suffering from severe pneumonia and hypoxemia, called bubble-CPAP.
Speaking on the occasion Dr Chisti said, “I am delighted to receive the People's Choice Award for most promising childhood pneumonia innovation.
I will be even happier if the World Health Organization recommends this low-cost bubble-CPAP treatment as the standard therapy for children with severe pneumonia and hypoxemia in developing countries.”
Dr Chisti’s affordable bubble-CPAP unit uses cheap equipment like a shampoo bottle and plastic tubing, so it is easy to access and simple to put together.
A recent clinical trial published in The Lancet has shown that Dr Chisti’s low-cost bubble-CPAP was associated with fewer deaths and treatment failures in children under five years of age with severe pneumonia compared to the World Health Organization’s recommended standard low-flow oxygen treatment.
More than 50 innovators and 150 global health leaders assembled at the inaugural Pneumonia Innovations Summit in New York to coincide with World Pneumonia Day.
The next generation of pneumonia prevention, diagnostic and treatment innovations were unveiled at the event.
Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of death in children and it kills more than 950,000 children under five years of age annually.  
The bulk of this burden falls on South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
According to a recent report, Pushing the Pace: Progress and Challenges in Fighting Childhood Pneumonia, many children die because of delays in appropriate care seeking, diagnosis and treatment.
Dr Chisti says, “Most children with pneumonia in low resource settings do not have access to lifesaving oxygen.
Innovations that make oxygen more accessible and affordable are now available.
We need to push the pace and make access to oxygen the priority it deserves to be.”
He received the People’s Choice Award alongside other four innovators.
The top five were the ones that received the most “Facebook likes” out of a total 34 innovations.
The event was organized by the Pneumonia Innovations Team, a global network of more than 200 organizations and individuals committed to accelerating the development and adoption of new technologies with the greatest potential to reduce child deaths from pneumonia.
Stethoscope desk