Posted by Priscilla Thain
on Nov 22, 2010
Polio Outbreak in the Congo Republic
The Rotary International Organization is contributing $500,000 to UNICEF and the World Health Organization to immunize people in Pointe Noire, a coastal city where about 100 people have died in an outbreak of polio that appears to have an unusually high mortality rate. From there, they will spread out to the rest of the country, neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (formally Zaire) and Angola, with the goal of vaccinating 3 million people of all ages by the year’s end. Normally polio drops are given only to small children, but many teenagers and adults in central Africa are unprotected