Photos: helping children disabled by Agent Orange

Dang Hong Dan is just three years old but he’s a victim of the Vietnam War. He was born with disabilities because of Agent Orange – a chemical sprayed in the south of the country during the war to destroy crops and forests. Although the war ended almost four decades ago, Agent Orange still contaminates fields and rivers in the Mekong Delta region. It gets into food and drinking water, causing birth defects in children.

Photos: UNICEF Viet Nam\2013\Truong Viet Hung

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Children with disabilities overcome the legacy of Agent Orange

Three-year-old Dan was born with disabilities because of Agent Orange
© UNICEF Viet Nam/2013/Truong Viet Hung

Dang Hong Dan is just three years old but he’s a victim of the Vietnam War. He was born with disabilities because of Agent Orange – a chemical sprayed in the south of the country during the war to destroy crops and forests. Although the war ended almost four decades ago, Agent Orange still contaminates fields and rivers in the Mekong Delta region. It gets into food and drinking water, causing birth defects in children.

Dan was born with a cleft lip, which has been partly repaired with surgery, and a deformed hand and foot. He is too young to be aware of his disability and the stigma that sometimes surrounds it. He is a happy and active child, with an enormous sense of curiosity and clearly intelligent for his age. “Dan likes to play with anything,” his mother Oanh, 30, says with a laugh as he tries to figure out how to use UNICEF’s digital camera.

The power of vaccines

The first "vaccine" a child receives, breast milk, is free and massively reduces the chances of illness. (c)UNICEF Viet Nam\2007\Doan Bao

This week more than 180 countries are celebrating World Immunization Week.  Vaccines are a life-saving and cost effective public health intervention we often take for granted. They provide immunity against various illnesses causing death and disability that a whole new generation is lucky enough not to remember. Vaccines helped eradicate smallpox in 1977 and are on their way to eradicating polio and eliminating neonatal tetanus and measles. Newer vaccines protect against some types of pneumonia and diarrhoea (the two biggest disease-specific killers of children) and various cancers.

A fully immunized child is more likely to attend school, have greater cognitive abilities, and be a more productive member of society and less likely to be disabled.

Reaching the fifth child in northern Viet Nam’s Lao Cai province

UNICEF correspondent Sabine Dolan reports on an immunization programme in rural Viet Nam.

24–30 April is World Immunization Week. Immunization is a successful and cost-effective way to save children’s lives. UNICEF has been a driving force behind universal immunization since the 1980s – behind reaching each and every child.

UNICEF and its partners are now intensifying their efforts to ensure that the poorest and most disadvantaged children have access to immunization.

LAO CAI PROVINCE, Viet Nam, 17 April 2013 – It’s Immunization Day at designated health centres in northern Viet Nam’s Lao Cai province. Parents have brought their children to be vaccinated or to receive their follow-up doses.

Giang Thi Mu has brought her 9-month-old daughter Hang Thi Thu to the Tram Y Te Xa sub-district health centre to get her shots. “I heard about this immunization day when health workers came to our community to inform our village and tell us about vaccination,” she says.

Local Child Protection Committees are pivotal to identify and support vulnerable children

Nam sells lottery tickets five kilometres away from his house © UNICEF Viet Nam/2013/Truong Viet Hung

I had seen them before, children who are selling lottery tickets in the markets and on the streets. Yet I had never bought a lottery ticket from a child because I didn’t want to encourage them to keep selling lottery tickets instead of going to school. After my field visit to An Giang, I have realised that some children, without support, simply do not have the option of going to school.

It is Tuesday morning and we are driving in a minivan from Long Xuyen city alongside the river to Phu Tan district. It is almost Tet, the Lunar, a.k.a. Chinese, New Year, and in front of many houses the Vietnamese flag is proudly waving accompanied by a yellow Tet tree. I am part of a UNICEF team who is going to visit families to listen to their experiences with the local child protection authorities, in order to improve their functioning.