Many Americans consider the measles more of a childhood annoyance than a life-threatening disease.
Some members of the campus community, in conjunction with a host of humanitarian organizations, hope to spread the message that measles remains a serious and deadly disease in many parts of the world today.
Measles Initiative Week, sponsored by the Louisiana Capital Area chapter of the American Red Cross, is underway on the University campus.
Dr. Mark Grabowsky, American Red Cross senior adviser for international services, praised the LSU campus for being the first university nationwide to support the initiative.
“LSU is the lead university for doing this, showing the initiative and showing they want to be the university working on this,” Grabowsky said. “The value of this is that it is doing good for others in a real world way.”
One of the week’s primary events on campus, a lecture designed to increase awareness of the worldwide campaign to eradicate measles in Africa, took place Tuesday in the Union Colonnade Theater.
Grabowsky spoke to a crowd of approximately 50 members of the campus community about current efforts by his and associated organizations to vaccinate children in underdeveloped nations susceptible to the disease.
“This is a model program that is being copied by other health programs, specifically for its cost efficiency,” Grabowsky said.
Grabowsky cited statistics from the 2000 World Health Report showing that while vaccination programs in North and South America have led to an elimination of measles-related deaths during the last three years, 11 percent of deaths in Africa for children under 15 years of age are from measles.
“Measles is still the world’s most contagious disease,” Grabowsky said. “That is an especially dangerous fact when over half of the children in Africa have no access to vaccination.”
Grabowsky said curing measles allows more resources to be allotted to other development efforts in these countries.
The Red Cross’ measles initiative is designed to eliminate all measles deaths in Africa by vaccinating 200 million children over a period of five years for less than $1 per vaccination.
The American Red Cross, Centers for Disease Control, the United Nations Foundation, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund are co-sponsors of the initiative
Allyson Quijano, a French senior and LSU Steering Committee member, helped to organize the event. Quijano also has taken charge of this week’s “Drive for Five” campaign, an effort to raise $5,000 for the vaccination initiative.
Volunteers will accept donations in Free Speech Alley on Thursday and Friday.
“We hope students who attended the event will be our messengers and that we will have a great turnout in Free Speech Alley tomorrow,” Quijano said.
Arsham Sheybani, a biology senior, said the presentation compelled him to action.
“I didn’t realize how measles could affect other aspects of life in Africa,” Sheybani said. “Dealing with the disease is like killing four or five birds with one stone.”
Measles Initiative Week continues through Friday, and students can donate money either to volunteers in Free Speech Alley or through the initiative’s Web site at www.measles initiative.org.