Each year,
more children die from measles than any other childhood vaccine-preventable disease.
In fact in 2000, approximately
777,000 children, most of them under five, died from measles.
A large proportion of these children died because they lived in areas where the vaccine was not administered due to
logistical challenges, inadequate health care system, missed opportunities + lack of awareness .
In an effort to turn around this dreadful (and unnecessary) situation
UNICEF, The
American Red Cross, The
UN Foundation, The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies + the
World Health Organisation have set up
The Measles Initiative and made shared
long-term commitments to control measles deaths in Africa by
vaccinating 200 million children through both mass and follow-up campaigns in up to
36 Sub-Saharan African countries.
By the year
2005,it is estimated that this initiative will have prevented
1.2 million deaths, bringing measles deaths in Africa to near zero.