Project Promotes Immunization, Right to Play for Children

Dorothy Hamill, Marion Jones Team Up With Olympic Aid and The Vaccine Fund; PSAs from Ghana Will Be Aired at Olympic Venues and Offered to Broadcasters

SALT LAKE CITY, 6 February 2002 - Two international humanitarian organizations are teaming up with leading athletes including Marion Jones and Dorothy Hamill at the Olympic Winter Games in a bid to level the playing field for children around the world.

The Vaccine Fund and Olympic Aid said they will work together in some of the world’s poorest countries to ensure that children are immunized against readily preventable diseases and that they have the opportunity to play while growing up.

As part of their joint project, the organizations sponsored the world’s first Olympic Sport and Immunization Festival in Accra, Ghana, in December 2001, where over 2600 children were immunized and thousands more enjoyed a day of fun and sport. The Festival served as the backdrop for a new series of public service announcements (PSAs) featuring three Olympic gold medal winners – Dorothy Hamill, Marion Jones, and Johann Olav Koss – as well as Olympic equestrian Princess Haya of Jordan.

The PSAs will be aired on giant screens at 10 Olympic venues and be offered to television broadcasters around the world. Each of the PSAs features one of the world-class athletes. The Marion Jones spot, for example, shows the triple gold medalist cradling an infant being immunized and then organizing a relay race. It concludes with Jones asking viewers to “Support the Vaccine Fund, and Olympic Aid, so that every child, everywhere, can achieve their full potential.”

“Every child has the right to play. But every child must be healthy in order to play. By joining forces with The Vaccine Fund, we are helping to level the playing field for all the world’s children,” said Olympic gold medal speed skater Johann Olav Koss, chairperson of Olympic Aid, an athlete-driven, humanitarian organization delivering sport and play programs to children living in situations of disadvantage around the world.

“We have a duty to eliminate the gap between children in rich and poor countries – not just for the children, but for the sake of the world,” added Victor Zonana, vice president for communications of The Vaccine Fund.. “Security, appropriately, is a major concern at these games. Our message today is that by securing the future of our children, we help secure the future of the world.” The Vaccine Fund, which is financed by six governments and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is seeking to raise $1 billion over the next four years to immunize children in the world’s 74 poorest countries.

Three million people, most of them children, die annually in developing countries from vaccine-preventable diseases that are largely unheard of in rich industrialized countries. A child is thirty times more likely to die from vaccine-preventable disease in poor countries.

Olympic Aid and The Vaccine Fund said they were grateful to the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee for agreeing to broadcast the new public service announcements at all ten Olympic venues.