Liberia to vaccinate 100,000 children

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Health officials in Liberia have launched a campaign to vaccinate some 100,000 children against pneumonia.

UNICEF representative Sheldon Yett said Thursday that the pneumococcal vaccine could have prevented some 7,000 deaths last year in Liberia.

Pneumonia is the West African country's No. 3 cause of child deaths after malaria and diarrhea, he said.

Health workers have been deployed in 500 facilities across the country to administer the vaccines, according to Tolbert Nyenswah, an assistant minister at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

Liberia is still recovering from a brutal 14-year civil war that ended in 2003. Chronic child malnutrition remains among the highest in the world.