Soon after the birth of her second child, a daughter she named Neema, Tabu Kalama found herself homeless and with no regular income. Ms Kalama had no option but to sleep with her newborn daughter and her 18-month old son in the meagre shelter of palm trees near the beach in Kilifi, in eastern Kenya.

It was June, among the coolest and wettest months there. “I was so worried that the baby would fall sick, and there was nothing that I could do,” Kalama says.

Neema developed a temperature high enough to be fatal for a 3-month-old baby. Ms Kalama had heard about pneumonia and worried that Neema might have this illness.

Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of death in children worldwide. This disease killed an estimated 935 000 children under the age of 5 in 2013.

Ms Kalama brought Neema to the hospital. After more than a week, including periods when Neema lost consciousness, her baby overcame the illness and was discharged.

Three months later, friends and well-wishers joined together to build the Kalama family a small hut in Kilifi. Today, Ms Kalama ekes out a living by watching over a neighbour’s herd of goats and from additional odd jobs