It’s every parent’s worst nightmare – a seriously ill child. Shahadat was infected with polio when he was only two.
His mother said, “He got a fever. Then his hands and legs became paralysed. My first fear was that he would never be able to walk. But then I worried that he might not survive at all.”
Fifty years ago, polio was once one of the most feared diseases in the world.
But mass immunization campaigns changed all that. Today, except for three countries in the world where polio is still endemic, we are very close to eradicating polio and preventing new infections in our lifetime.
Together we can reach more children like Shahadat.
The truth is that Shahadat could have….should have been protected against polio. The solution is simple: two drops of oral vaccine through routine immunization and polio outreach campaigns.
But the sad reality is that 20% of the world’s children – children just like Shahadat – do not have access to routine immunization services and as many as 1.5 million children die every year still die from vaccine-preventable causes.
Children like Shadahat are missing out because of where they were born.
Today there are mothers in forgotten communities in some of the farthest reaches of the world who are just as frightened by pneumonia, diarrhoea and maternal and neo-natal tetanus as we all once were of polio. In these communities, measles can be a death sentence. The flu can kill.
You can save children’s lives with your donations.
In these remote communities, with low incomes and weak health systems, children rarely have access to life-saving vaccines. Those who manage to survive an illness might be left with life-long disabilities such as blindness, deafness and heart problems among others. Or they might lose the ability to walk unaided, like Shahadat.
Now that Shahadat is four, he meets the challenges of his disability with the aid of a walker and looks forward to going to school and leading a normal life. However, over the course of his life he will face stigma and discrimination every day in his community which will also create barriers to education and employment, and likely perpetuate the cycle of poverty and exclusion his family already experiences.
We won’t stop until every last child is protected. That’s our promise.
Your gift to UNICEF today will help us go to the ends of the earth to vaccinate every child. It will help teams of vaccinators, social mobilizers, community workers, health workers, leaders, influencers and parents to toil in often difficult circumstances and environments to ensure that every child in every corner of the world receives a vaccination.
You can save 4,000 precious children every day
Our goal is simply to make sure that 100% of children are immunized against preventable diseases. Because doing so will help us save 4,000 precious children every day. Because even one child lost from a preventable disease is one child too many.
Please, won’t you give as generously as you can today. We are so close to eradicating polio completely in our lifetime. And we’re ready to go that extra mile to fight preventable diseases in children….with your help.
Please join me in supporting UNICEF today. Please give what you can.
Yours sincerely,
Lenny Kravitz
Source :
www.believeinzero.at/