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November 13, 2002
INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Vaccine Gift Boosts Campaign for Polio-Free World"
Reuters (www.reuters.com) (11/09/02)
Aventis Pasteur, the vaccine unit of the French drugs company Aventis, has donated 30 million doses of oral polio vaccine to UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) for their bid to eradicate polio from the world by 2005. The gift--which was accepted by WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland--will be used mostly in Africa, according to UNICEF officials. In fact, about 3 million doses are already en route to Liberia. Brundtland noted that the efforts of 166 countries to eradicate the disease have pushed polio to the edge of elimination, dropping the number of cases from 350,000 per year in 1988 to just 480 in 2001.
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