BABIESSalma Hayek Speaks Against Tetanus
Oct. 2 2008, Published 8:27 a.m. ET
New mother Salma Hayek is speaking out against deadly disease in her role as spokeswoman for the Pampers/UNICEF's campaign to eliminate tetanus, which kills a newborn baby every three minutes in a poor country, according to the Associated Press.
"I had no idea how much it was going to really personally move me ... to actually see it in Sierra Leone," Salma said at a news conference in Geneva. She recently visited Sierra Leone as part of a vaccination drive battling the disease.
Tetanus is no longer a problem industrial countries, but it's blamed for the deaths of 140,000 babies a year and 30,000 mothers in 50 countries around the world, according to UNICEF. Procter & Gamble has pledged to donate a vaccine for every specially-marked pack of Pampers diapers sold throughout the year's end.
"You cannot protect a child at birth against tetanus unless you immunize the mother during the pregnancy or before," said UNICEF expert Francois Gasse.
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Salma recently became a mother, giving birth to daughter Valentina last year, who's father is Francois-Henri Pinault, a French businessman.
