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Groups Seek $4 Billion for Child Vaccines

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I'm Alex Villarreal with the VOA Special English Health Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglishVaccines and chest compressions are both ways to save lives. Now, separate new reports say each could save more lives if they were used more. One report is from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the GAVI Alliance. GAVI is the Global Alliance for Vaccines andImmunization. This alliance of public and private groups finances vaccines in poor countries. Spokesman Jeffrey Rowland says GAVI has done a lot since it began ten years ago. He says they have prevented 5.4 million premature deaths. And he says they hope to prevent 4.2 million premature deaths by keeping immunization rates high for several diseases including pneumonia and rotavirus diarrhea. GAVI says these two diseases cause more than one-third of all deaths in children under age five. It says new vaccines against the pneumococcal bacteria and rotavirus could save more than one million children each year. But the group warns that a shortage of four billion dollars threatens these and other immunization programs. In other health news, a new study compares ways of saving patients with cardiac arrest. Sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart develops an abnormal rhythm and stops beating.An analysis of four studies found no difference in short-term survival when rescuers followed current guidelines. These call for defibrillation as soon as possible. A defibrillator is the device used to shock the heart back to normal rhythm. But there was a small increase in long-term survival amongthose who received chest compressions before defibrillation. This was true especially if there were delays in the arrival of emergency medical services.Dr. Pascal Meier of the University of Michigan Health System led an international study of one thousand five hundred patients. He said they wantedto test whether it would be better to start with chest compressions to get some blood circulation to the brain and heart before they applied the electrical shock. Dr. Meier says people should start to give compressions immediately if emergency help has not arrived. He says good quality compressionsare done in the middle of the chest, about two fingers above the lower end of the chest bone. You put both hands on the chest, straighten your arms and do strong compressions. For VOA Special English I'm Alex Villarreal.

(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 15Sept2010)
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