R) Maha Shafik Al-Frangi, program assistant of the Gulf Area office of UNICEF; Mona Abu Suliman, the general secretary and executive director of Waleed Bin Talal Foundation and brand ambassador of Pampers; Dr. Arwa Baydar, a child health officer at UNICEF's Yemen office; Mohammed Taylor, assistant brand manager of Arabian Peninsula and Pampers Brand Manager; and other guests supporting the campaign. (SG photos by Fouzia Khan) PAMPERS Saudi Arabia have joined hands with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Saudi Arabian branch and Gulf region, in a campaign to vaccinate pregnant mothers and save the lives of their babies. The disease claims the lives of 10 newborn babies every day in Yemen. “The king of the country is a humanitarian king and so is the country. It's our social responsibility towards the world and our region to help them out with their problems and save as many lives as possible,” said Mohammed Taylor, the assistant brand manager of Arabian Peninsula and Pampers Brand Manager. “Pampers knows its social responsibility, so we decided to help children and women to protect them from tetanus and raise funds in Saudi Arabia. With each Pampers pack sold during the campaign, Pampers will contribute one life saving vaccine.” He add that the slogan is “1 pack = 1 life-saving vaccine”. “Our first step is to make the public aware. We started this campaign globally in 2006 but we kicked off in the Gulf in 2008 when we donated five million vaccines for all the countries which needed it. This is our second initiative in the Gulf and in support of Yemen. But this will not be the last, we will continue to participate with UNICEF to eliminate tetanus worldwide.” The campaign includes a 90-minute movie on TV channels and in malls. Taylor said that this is a joint venture between Pampers, Mona Abu Suliman, the general secretary and executive director of Waleed Bin Talal Foundation, Saudi UNICEF and the Saudi Ministry of Health. Every year worldwide almost 59,000 newborn babies die because of this disease and seven million women and children die in 39 countries, including Yemen, because of tetanus. Every nine minutes a new born baby dies because of tetanus in the world, he added. In Yemen, 30,000 babies die from maternal and neonatal tetanus every year, despite the fact that the disease is preventable through simple vaccination. Dr. Arwa Baydar, a child health officer at UNICEF's Yemen office, said the main reason for visiting Saudi Arabia was to raise funds. “Saudi Arabia has already been eliminated from the list of the countries who suffer from tetanus, so now our efforts are on Yemen,” she said. Eliminating the disease means having less than one case per thousand births of children without tetanus. She said it was important to have a proper health system to ensure the sterile conditions needed to deliver babies safely. Yemen has a poor health system so vaccinating mothers can protect both of them. She said mothers need to be vaccinated five times in their lives for complete protection. The second dose needs to be given a month after the first dose, then after six months, then one year later and the last one a year afterwards. “In Yemen the child-bearing age is between 14 to 49 years. We have already cleared quite a number of patients, but we still need 3.4 million doses of vaccine to eliminate tetanus from Yemen,” she said.
