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His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Partner to Immunize Children

bill gates
Bill Gates (co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) administers a vaccine to a child as Musa Gandi, (Sokoto State Director of Primary Health Care) and Hajji Luba Musa Argungu (NPHCDA) look on at the Mabera Community Health Post in Sokoto, Nigeria on February 1, 2009. Photo: courtesy of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation / Prashant Panjiar

Seattle/Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced today they are working together to provide life-saving vaccinations to children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The partnership commits a total of $100 million – $50 million from each partner – for the purchase and delivery of vital vaccines that will save Afghan and Pakistani children and prevent disease for a lifetime.

"Like all children, the children of Afghanistan and Pakistan deserve the quality of health and opportunities that childhood immunization can provide. The personal, community, national and international benefits that will result from a generation growing up protected from preventable diseases have the potential to resonate for generations to come," said Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed.

Children in Afghanistan and Pakistan are especially vulnerable to preventable diseases, such as polio and pneumonia. Challenges in reaching them include conflict in the region, unequal health services and immunization levels among provinces within each country and, in the case of Pakistan, a slow recovery from last year's devastating floods.

"Vaccines protect children from many life-threatening childhood diseases, providing the best way to give a child a healthy start to life,‖ said Mr. Gates. ―This partnership is a powerful example of how collaboration by the global community can help build a healthier, more stable future for Afghan and Pakistani children, their families and communities."

One in four children in Afghanistan does not survive to see his or her fifth birthday, making infant and under-five mortality rates in that country among the world's highest.

Of the total funds, two-thirds will be given to the GAVI Alliance for the purchase and delivery of the pentavalent vaccine and for the introduction of the new pneumococcal vaccine in Afghanistan. These vaccines help protect children from the biggest killers of children under five, including pneumonia, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type B (HiB), which causes meningitis.

The remaining $34 million of the allocated funds will be directed to the World Health Organization and UNICEF to deliver polio vaccines in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although worldwide polio has been reduced by 99 percent during the past 20 years, Afghanistan and Pakistan are two of only four countries where polio transmission has never been stopped. To date, there has been a cycle of re-infection of this crippling disease between the populations of the two countries.

The partnership will result in the immunization of approximately five million children in Afghanistan against six deadly diseases, and will help the World Health Organization and UNICEF workers reach approximately 35 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan with oral polio vaccines.

Published January 26, 2011, 1:53 am

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