WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Actress Hathaway helping to immunize Nicaraguan children against hepatitis-A

Actress Hathaway helping to immunize Nicaraguan children against hepatitis-A

(San Marcos, Nicaragua-NBC) July 27, 2006 - Actress Anne Hathaway's latest movie gives insight into the world of high fashion, but she was in a different environment as part of her campaign with the World Health Organization to vaccinate children against hepatitis-A.

She and her boyfriend, Raffaello Folliere, participated in the vaccination of 1,000 children in remote villages outside the capital of Nicaragua.

Nicaragua is one of a number of countries that has inadequate clean water supplies and poor sanitation known to spread the disease.

The illness causes fever, nausea and jaundice. The majority of cases are not fatal, but the illness can last several months.

In developing countries, almost all children contract hepatitis before they are nine-years-old and it goes undetected because of a lack of specific symptoms.

Hathaway says, "If you vaccinate one child that you greatly heighten the chance, you bring immunity into their family because as we all know diseases are spread very easily among children. So by doing this we are actually vaccinating far more than a thousand children."

Posted 8:19pm by Chantelle Janelle