The incidence of pneumonia, one of the biggest killers of children under five in South Africa and the region, will be greatly reduced when a new respiration monitor becomes widely accessible to health workers from next year. The children's automated respiration monitor will be commercially available from the second quarter of next year, and will help prevent nearly a million childhood deaths worldwide each year.It will do this by changing the way community health workers monitor a child's breathing rate.Currently, in most poor areas, a child's breathing rate is monitored by community health workers counting the breaths he takes in one minute.The accuracy of this method is suspect because "shallow breaths are hard to detect, children often move around and there might be distractions and other checks to perform", reported African Press Organisation."Each year, pneumonia kills more children than Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined."The new monitor will convert chest movements detected by accelerometers similar to those found in many smartphones, into an accurate breathing count.The Department of Health said an inter-ministerial committee reviewing mortality in the under-fives identified the four conditions most likely to cause death as pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV and malnutrition.For every 1000 live births in this country, 45 children die before the age of five.Pneumonia is often dubbed "the silent killer" because it receives less attention than HIV."The monitor will be a game changer in diagnosing and treating pneumonia," said Salim Sadruddin, senior child health adviser at Save the Children."If we can remove the subjectivity associated with health workers counting breaths we can improve the quality of treatment and help improve outcomes."According to JJ van Dongen, CEO of manufacturers Philips Africa: "Innovation can help drive sustainable solutions that bridge the divide between the privileged and lesser privileged to improve the quality of life ."..