The Naperville Kiwanis Club will be around town at Casey’s, Naperville Jewel stores and the intersection of Chicago and Sleight Street collecting donations for Project Eliminate.
In conjunction with Unicef, the project aims to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus around the world, a painful disease that kills one baby every eleven minutes.
“It’s a huge problem in developing countries. Tetanus is a spore that lives in the earth everywhere and when it’s transmitted to humans basically through unsanitary conditions when babies are born, the toxin attacks the brain and central nervous system, causes a agonizing death for the baby, usually within four or five days,” explained Fred Jacobs, a member of the Naperville Kiwanis Club.
The project began in 2010 with a goal to raise $110 million. Locally the Kiwanis of Naperville have raised $50,000 of their $65,000 goal.
Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus was prevalent in 59 countries in the world, but now has been eliminated in all but 18.
Naperville News 17’s Alyssa Bochenek reports.
