http://www.cidi.org/humanitarian/hsr/iraq/ixl116.html

IRAQ: UNICEF receives vaccines for war newborns - 04-Jun-03

U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) 4 June 2003

IRAQ: UNICEF receives vaccines for war newborns

BASRA, 4 June (IRIN) - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on
Wednesday that it had received 1.8 million doses of child vaccines and
would soon begin an immunisation campaign to vaccinate the more than
120,000 children born in Iraq since the start of the war.
 
A UNICEF spokesman, Allan Dow, told IRIN that none of these newborns had
yet been vaccinated due largely to the fact that many primary health-care
centres in and around the southern city of Basra had been looted in the
aftermath of the war, that fridges had been stolen and the existing
vaccine stock had therefore expired.
 
UNICEF said the delivery of the vaccines - for immunisation against polio,
tuberculosis, measles, hepatitis and tetanus - had been contingent on the
completion of a UNICEF cold-storage facility, which had now been installed
at the health ministry building in Basra.


IRIN-Asia
Tel: +92-51-2211451
Fax: +92-51-2292918
Email: IrinAsia@irin.org.pk

[This Item is Delivered to the "Asia-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to
change your keywords, contact e-mail: IRIN@ocha.unon.org or Web:  
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this
item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
    Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Iraq                                 www.cidi.org/humanitarian/hsr/iraq