FYI: Vaccine-preventable diseases

Last week at the Social Good Summit, there were many panels devoted to women-centric issues: Christy Turlington spoke about reducing deaths in women due to childbirth and news anchor Juju Chang covered maternal health in the developing world. In many of these sessions, the story wasn't just a strengthened focus on women issues but also putting women in the seat of the activist, especially moms. Nonprofits are now targeting mothers in America  as a key activist group to impact women and children in the developing world.

An organization that is aiming to utilize this power of mothers' voices is Shot@Life. Launched by the UN Foundation at last week's Social Good Summit, the campaign aims to create awareness on vaccine-preventable diseases and provide children vaccines where they are needed the most. Part of the problem is that many developing nations need to strengthen their health systems to properly store and administer vaccines. The numbers are grim (see below) but expanding access to vaccines can prevent an additional 1.7 million deaths each year.

The numbers:

• Every 20 seconds a child dies to a vaccine-preventable disease.
• 1 in 5 children do not have access to life saving vaccines. 
• Around 1.7 million children in developing countries die each year of a preventable disease like pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, and polio.
• Measles is still a killer with  an estimated 450 people dying to the disease each day.
• Though polio is almost near eradication, it still remains endemic in four countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. There has been a resurgence of polio in other countries, such as Angola, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• The rotavirus is the most common cause of diarrhea in children. More than half a million children under age five die as a result of rotavirus each year.  Approximately 2 million more become severely ill.
• Access to vaccines is particularly problematic in some countries:  75% of non-vaccinated children live in just 10 countries -  India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, China, Uganda, Chad, and Kenya. 

Watch the full panel discussion from Social Good Summit:

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