Yerevan, January 31 /Mediamax/. The Millenium Armenian Children’s Vaccine Fund (MACVF) and the mobile operator VivaCell announced a partnership in the struggle against measles and rubella - the eighth leading cause of death among people of all ages worldwide.

Mediamax reports that VivaCell allocated to the Millenium Armenian Children’s Vaccine Fund $100 thousand to support the Naitonal Supplementary Immunization Campaign against measles and rubella.

“The greatness of a company should be measured not by its size or revenues, but its long-term positive impact on the life of the public it serves. Our operations are based on this very principle”, said Ralph Yirikian, General Manager of VivaCell.

Naitonal Supplementary Immunization Campaign against measles and rubella, which is to be launched in spring of 2007, is part of the Measles Elimination Strategy to be submitted to the Armenian government, which will act in response to the WHO strategy for Eliminating Measles and Rubella from the European Region.

Despite its routine measles-immunization efforts in recent decades, Armenia remains on the list of countries susceptible to measles outbreaks, which strike between 30 and 40 million children every year and result in some 9 million deaths internationally.

As the MACVF’s Project Manager Narine Hayrapetyan noted, “our partnership with VivaCell will help save children’s lives and safeguard the future well-being of several generations of Armenians”.

“VivaCell’s generous contribution will enable us to obtain critically-needed supplies of the measles-mumps (MR) vaccine for the children of Armenia”, Narine Hayrapetyan stated.