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U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
PRESS RELEASE
WASHINGTON, DC 20523
PRESS OFFICE
http://www.usaid.gov
(202) 712-43202002-017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2002Contact: USAID Press Office
Washington, D.C. - At a signing ceremony at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) headquarters today, Frederick W. Schieck, USAID Deputy Administrator and E. Anne Peterson, Assistant Administrator for USAID's Global Health Bureau, highlighted a program to vaccinate Afghan children.
Anne Peterson (Assistant Administrator, Global Health, USAID), Carol Bellamy (Executive Director, UNICEF), and Fred Schieck (Deputy Administrator, USAID) signing the grant agreement with UNICEF. As a portion of the U.S. government's rapidly increasing assistance to help the people of Afghanistan, USAID has provided the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) with $600,000 to provide life-saving measles vaccinations for more than 2 million Afghan children.
USAID has been the lead U.S. government agency for planning and funding reconstruction in Afghanistan. USAID recently announced more than $15 million in quick-starting programs, particularly in education, women's development, health and agriculture to meet the Afghan people's most pressing needs. That $15 million plan is part of USAID's total $167 million Afghanistan reconstruction effort.
"This funding for measles immunization is only a small part of our growing effort to help the people of Afghanistan," said Schieck. "Health initiatives like this are critical to enable the Afghan people to return to full, productive lives after years of oppression under the Taliban."
The under five mortality rate in Afghanistan, estimated to be 250 deaths per 1,000 births, is among the highest in the world. Vaccination rates for many preventable diseases among the country's 11 million children have fallen to dangerously low levels in recent years. Less than half of the country's children have been vaccinated against measles-a disease that kills an average of 35,000 Afghan children each year.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is the U.S. government agency that has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years.
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