Bill Gates to help SE Asian children

Bill Gates to help SE Asian children

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AFP): A Bill Gates sponsored project to ensure every child in Southeast Asia is inoculated against basic diseases was launched here on Sunday with the arrival of the first shipment of vaccines.

The five-year project sponsored by the Vaccine Fund plans to inoculate children against hepatitis, B-diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

Fund president Jacques Francois Martin said 13 million children each year are not immunized of whom three million will die from preventable diseases.

"We have very effective and cheap tools to avoid this," he said.

The fund aimed to reinvigorate the immunization drive, he said.

The Vaccine Fund -- a global project -- was established in 1999 with an endowment from the Microsoft boss of US$750 million and has worked in conjunction with Unicef and the World Health Organization.