American Red Cross Club at Cornell Sponsors Award-Winning Film, Lecture

The American Red Cross at Cornell University will host "Disease of the Wind," an award-winning film about the terror that Measles reigns on African children, and the Red Cross Measles Initiative to mass vaccinate and prevent this deadly disease.

The documentary by filmmaker James Keach, follows Jane Seymour, member of the Red Cross Celebrity Cabinet, and eight schoolchildren from Hawthorne, California during their week-long mass measles vaccination campaign in Kenya. This campaign was one of 11 campaigns across Africa this year, where Red Cross workers educate and mobilize mothers and parents to bring their children to be vaccinated against this completely preventable disease.

The film will be introduced by Jessica Sapalio, National Youth Coordinator from the American Red Cross National headquarters, followed by a question and answer period about the program. The presentation and film screening are free, showing at Cornell Cinema's Willard Straight Theater on Thursday October 16th, beginning at 5:00pm.

The Measles Initiative is a long-term commitment to control measles deaths of children in Africa by vaccinating 200 million children and preventing 1.2 million deaths over the next five years. Measles and its complications kill approximately 450,000 children each year in Africa; deaths that can be prevented through vaccination. The Measles Initiative is a cooperative project between Red Cross societies in Africa, American Red Cross, Center for Disease Control, UNICEF, World Health Organization, and United Nations Foundation.