Word: cidadap
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Mothers in the Indonesian village of Cidadap don't have big dreams for their kids. Surviving infancy is often as much as they hope for, with everything else left to luck. Fikri Ramdani looked like one of the fortunate ones--active and well and, at 19 months, deep into toddlerhood. Today, however, he lies limp in his mother's arms, his eyes rolled back and his face shiny with sweat. "He used to like playing ball," says his mother Yayat. "Now he can't even stand...
...sickly village of Cidadap is not alone in its woes. Even as Americans celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Salk vaccine--the magic bullet that all but wiped out polio in the U.S.--the disease is on the march around the world. Since 2003 polio has been spreading in a fevered band across 16 countries mostly in western and central Africa and the Middle East. And with the news last week that the virus had leaped the Indian Ocean to Indonesia, other nations, including the U.S., have begun to worry about where the disease might turn up next...
Indonesia is trying. With the help of WHO, Rotary and the other groups, 5 million at-risk kids will be vaccinated in the next few weeks. The immunization rate in Indonesia is already high--90% or more--but in places like Cidadap, it's less than 50%. "The challenge is to respond quickly and make sure we get vaccine to these low-coverage areas," says Robert Keegan, deputy director of the CDC's global immunization division...
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