In a recent report, it has been revealed that when a child is infected by pneumonia, zinc in addition with the medicines might act as a life saver. The study has been conducted by Maheswari G. Srinivasan, from the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the School of Medicine, situated in Uganda. For the same, there were tests done on children aged 6-59 months, who had suffered from pneumonia. It was found that by receiving the strong antibiotic medicines for curing the disease, if zinc was given in combination, the mortality rates were reduced.

It was further found that the mortality rates in the HIV infected people were greater than those children who weren’t affected by the disease.

"One randomized controlled study from Bangladesh showed that zinc adjunct therapy accelerated recovery of children with severe pneumonia… but other studies have shown no effect and no studies have assessed the impact of zinc adjunct therapy on case fatality of children with pneumonia”, said the authors of the study.

It is essential that pneumonia, which is a serious illness, is hence treated in combination with zinc, as it shall prove to be a helping hand in effectively curing the body, and making stronger to fight the infection.

This would tend to reduce the risk of mortality and give the patients more strength to be able to fight their disease. It was revealed however, that zinc didn’t help in curing the person earlier, the time taken in healing would be same, but the risk of death would be decreased. This can however, be case subjective and different people might tend to have different reactions to how the disease and the zinc affects them.