UNICEF JOINS INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN COMMEMORATING 200 YEARS OF VACCINES
Press Release
ICEF/1828
UNICEF JOINS INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN COMMEMORATING 200 YEARS OF VACCINES
19960126 NEW YORK, 25 January (UNICEF) -- The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) -- sponsors of the Task Force for Child Survival and Development -- met yesterday at the United Nations to launch a bicentennial commemoration of one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history, the invention of a vaccine. Also present was Jacques Bertrand, President of Pasteur Merieux-Connaught, an international vaccine company which will sponsor events held during the anniversary year.The first vaccine was administered 200 years ago by Edward Jenner, an Englishman, against smallpox. Smallpox became the first major disease to be conquered by vaccine, being eradicated in 1979. Since Jenner's time, vaccination has controlled nine major diseases, smallpox, diphtheria, tetanus, yellow fever, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella. In addition, vaccinations against such illnesses as influenza and hepatitis B have been invented.
"Wherever children live, vaccines protect them from death, disease and disability. Today, a child growing up in a village in Malawi can enjoy the same level of protection through immunization as a child in Switzerland", UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said today.
According to UNICEF, by the end of 1990, immunization of the world's children had risen from 20 per cent to 80 per cent in just six years. Because of vaccines, eight out of every 10 children in the world are now protected from six deadly childhood diseases -- measles, tuberculosis, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough and polio. This achievement saves 3 million young lives every year.
After a 20-year effort, it is expected that the polio virus is soon to be the second vaccine-preventable disease to be eradicated. Worldwide, the estimated number of cases has fallen from 400,000 in 1980 to just over 100,000 in 1993. Of 213 countries under surveillance, 145 reported zero cases in 1993. The Americas region has been polio-free since 1991. The UNICEF estimates that approximately $130 million a year over a five-year period is needed to finish the job of eradicating polio. Eradication would save the US$270 million a year and Western Europe, $200 million, which they spend every year on polio vaccinations because the disease still exists elsewhere.
Vaccines have also been used as instruments of peace. The UNICEF has negotiated with warring factions, most recently in the Sudan, to cease fighting and allow health workers to immunize children. In the Sudan, one cease-fire period lasted five months.
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