District
Hep B project makes Rotary World
4th October 2004
Our
District Project Hepatitis B in China was being published on
P.8 on Rotary World - October Issue.
Download the page from Rotary World
(PDF 'Acrobat' Format):
District works to protect one million babies
in China from hepatitis B
District 3450 (Hong Kong, Macau, and Mongolia) is funding a
project to immunize one million newborns in poverty-stricken
communities in mainland China against hepatitis B within a decade.
Established in 2001, the HK$20 million (approximately US$2.6
million) initiative is aimed at demonstrating Rotary’s
concern for the people of China and earning goodwill for the
organization. In the past decade, clubs in the district have
raised more than US$10 million to support humanitarian programs
in China.
More than one-third of the world’s hepatitis B carriers
live in China, making immunization against the disease one of
the country’s top public-health priorities. About 127
million residents, or roughly 10 percent of the population,
are infected. Some 280,000 Chinese die of the disease each year.
“We estimate at least 10 million people will benefit directly
or indirectly from this initiative,” says Jones Wong,
immediate past governor of District 3450. “The vision
and magnitude of this project is comparable to Rotary International’s
pledge … to eradicate polio.”
The initiative took off in 2003 with the massive immunization
of more than 60,000 babies in Handan, an underserved city of
4.8 million in Hebei Province.
The seed money for the project has come from individual donations,
as well as club- and district-level fundraisers. District of?cials
estimate the project will require a target contribution of HK$100
per month from each District 3450 Rotarian for the next 10 years.
Download
the full newsletter:
http://www.rotary.org/newsroom/downloadcenter/newsroom/index.html
|
|
Welcome
