DID YOU KNOW

August was declared National Lung Month through Presidential Proclamation No. 1761 issued by then President Ferdinand Marcos on July 24, 1978. The proclamation notes how lung diseases, especially pneumonia and tuberculosis, cause massive loss of lives among Filipinos. Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority released in February 2018 showed that pneumonia was the third leading cause of death in the country in 2016, with 57,809 or 9.9 percent of the total 582,183 deaths that year. —Marielle Medina