PRESS CONFERENCE BY UN CHILDREN’S FUND

PRESS CONFERENCE BY UN CHILDREN’S FUND

"When UNICEF comes into a village, hope comes into a village", Mia Farrow, award-winning actress and Special Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said this afternoon at a Headquarters press conference reporting on the launch last Saturday of a countrywide polio vaccination campaign in Nigeria.

Ms. Farrow, who helped launch the campaign, was joined today by Kul Gautam, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF.  She was introduced by Mohammad Jalloh, Communications Officer of UNICEF.  The countrywide campaign was designed to immunize every child under age five, or a total of 40 million youths. 

Mr. Gautam said the cause of eradicating polio was a familiar one to

Ms. Farrow, who had been a victim of the disease.  She would be the Fund's spokesperson in the global campaign, and it was in that capacity that she made a first trip to Nigeria.  Nigeria was not only the most populous country in Africa, it was also the largest reservoir of the polio virus in the world.  Ms. Farrow attended the day-long national immunization campaign, and her visit had been a great success.

Ms. Farrow said she lived with the effects of polio everyday because her

12-year-old son, Thaddeus, was paraplegic as a result of the disease.  He had been adopted from an orphanage in Calcutta, where he had contracted the disease.  Thus, she felt doubly motivated to see the end of polio.  UNICEF’s goal was to end transmission of polio within two years and by 2005 to totally eradicate it.  Her son, Thaddeus, and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan had pushed the button last September to begin that countdown. 

Upon meeting the First Lady of Nigeria, Ms. Farrow asked her to request the government authorities to urge every mother with a child under age five to come to the national immunization days.  Also, one could not be in Africa and not mention HIV/AIDS.  She, therefore, asked the First Lady to talk to young people with regard to safe sex practices.  There was some resistance to that in Nigeria, as it was steeped in the Islamic tradition.  That resistance had posed a major obstacle towards arresting transmission of the disease.

She had also asked the First Lady about the education of young girls in Nigeria and, appallingly, too many were not being schooled, she said.  Ms. Farrow invited the First Lady to attend the United Nations World Summit for Children in September.  The First Lady had been most responsive to all of those requests. 

Ms. Farrow said she had travelled to several towns, including Lagos and Abuja, as well as some outlying villages.  Apart from shedding light on the polio scourge, her job was to look, listen and learn.  She began to learn about the problems faced by Nigerians on a daily basis. 

Each time she entered a village, she said, her group was handed a list of requests for UNICEF.  Its staff members, working in those villages, were among the most extraordinary people she had ever met.  Those were the real heroes.  The programmes they had implemented there were life-saving.  During an impromptu visit to one of the villages, the chief took the entourage to see the water well, filled with stagnant, putrid water.  Like "a knight in shining armour", the UNICEF

representative took note and promised that within one week the situation would be remedied. 

In almost every village, she said, the representatives asked for medical supplies.  It was vital to work with the government officials, she went on.  The Health Minister, who was a very proud man, said simply, "we need help".  That was the message she was bringing home.

Asked by a correspondent to describe the kind of help the country needed, she said they needed more money for more medicine, so that ideally every village could have access to clean water.  A clean-water source meant that children did not have to walk five miles a day with water jugs on their heads for their families.  Contaminated water meant more babies were dying.  The maternal and infant mortality rates were alarmingly high:  one out of 13 mothers died in childbirth, and some 125 babies die per every 1,000 births.

Mr. Gautam added that "we are on the verge of eradicating polio by the year 2005".  The total external resources needed for that purpose was approximately

$1 billion, of which one half had already been funded.  The eradication of polio would save the world $1.5 billion annually.  That was a great investment, for which support was needed from all kinds of donors.  The pressing concerns over the water supply and sanitation also required support.

Now that Ms. Farrow had seen the primitive life, did she have any specific plans to help those people, and was there any additional footage on the situation in Nigeria? another correspondent asked.

Ms. Farrow said that putting all of the footage together would provide a coherent account of the situation in Nigeria.

Mr. Gautam said that UNICEF had a collection of films on Africa that he could make available to the journalist.  The Fund was not operating in countries such as Nigeria under a time-bound programme; it was there for the long haul.  Nearly half of UNICEF's total resources was devoted to sub-Saharan Africa, because the children in those countries faced the greatest threats.  In fact, Africa should be a priority for the entire United Nations system.  Mr. Annan was very committed to mobilizing resources for Africa, including for plans to combat HIV/AIDS, immunize against other "killer" diseases such as measles, and improve girls' access to education.

The polio vaccine required a "cold chain", Ms. Farrow explained.  It had to be kept cold from the time it left the producer country through transport in villages that often did not have refrigeration or electricity.  That was one of the reasons why the immunization programme was so costly.

Another correspondent asked if Ms. Farrow had been in the country during the flogging of a young girl accused of having engaged in premarital sex.  To the UNICEF officers, she asked whether the new Nigerian Government was allocating more money for social services.

Ms. Farrow said she had been in Nigeria during the flogging, but the latest reports at the time had indicated that the flogging would not take place.  Indeed, it had, and she had pondered what she could have said to the First Lady in an attempt to influence the situation.

Mr. Gautam said that the mismanagement of Nigeria had been no secret, and social services for children had not received high priority during the former regime.  He was pleased that the new President had attached a high priority to children and basic social services.  One example was immunization, which had not been considered a high priority by previous administrations.  Overall, routine immunization levels in Nigeria in the last decade had decreased; those were still among the lowest in Africa, at 25 to 30 per cent.  The Fund was now beginning to see a change in the Government's policy. 

Most welcome, he said, had been the synchronization of Nigeria with many other countries of the region for national immunization days.  After all, "polio respects no boundaries".  The country would continue to need some external support, but it would not be forever dependent on it, as it had considerable potential.

Responding to a question about meeting the 2005 projected deadline for the eradication of polio worldwide, Mr. Gautam said that "good progress" was being made.  In 1999, there had been 7,000 reported cases worldwide.  At the end of 2000, there were only 2,000 cases.  That was a 60 per cent reduction worldwide in just one year.  Nigeria still had a large number of cases.  Last year, there were 500 total reported cases, which meant that Nigerians accounted for one quarter of the incidence worldwide.  That was why Nigeria's success was crucial, not only for Nigeria, but also for the world.

He added that several future immunization dates were planned across West Africa.  Thus, he was quite optimistic, as long as the routine and national immunization days continued.  In addition, with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO), a strong surveillance system had been established in Nigeria. 

Why had Ms. Farrow not taken her son, Thaddeus, on the trip, and had she returned with the feeling that she had made a difference with regard to eradicating polio in Nigeria? another correspondent asked.

Ms. Farrow explained that Thaddeus was rather fragile.  Moreover, he was not on a holiday school break, like her son, Seamus.  She described the Nigerians' reaction to her "under-cooked" son with the very white hair.  Nevertheless, he had been a real "ice breaker".  The trip had affected him.  In particular, he was considering a college project to provide a freshwater well for one village.  She was happy to have brought him.  They had visited a facility with young polio victims, which had a strong impact on her and the media members.  She was less shocked, however, because she witnessed daily the effects of polio on her child.  The difference was that he had all his needs met, including a bright red wheelchair, braces, and physical therapy. 

For her part, she said she was disturbed to leave young people in such distress, but she was comforted in the knowledge that UNICEF would remain. 

[Following the press conference, UNICEF previewed two short promotional tapes aimed at raising awareness about the problem.]

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