The European Commission has made available two grants totalling ECU 1.98 MECU to combat diphtheria in the former Soviet Union. The grant will be channelled via the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) and will enable the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) to continue work on a coordinated vaccination campaign.

UNICEF will get a grant of one million ECU. This will cover Tadjikistan, the country with the highest level of fatal cases (630,000 ECU), and the three southern Caucasus states, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia (370,000). IFRC will get a grant of 980,000 ECU, for work in Belarus (730,000 ECU), and the Russian Federation (250,000 ECU).

Diphtheria, which had been virtually eradicated in Western Europe, made a comeback in the former Soviet Union as social structures broke down. In 1994, there were about 50,000 cases, eight out of ten of them in the Russian Federation. Isolated cases have also been reported in the European Union in individuals who had travelled east.

These new grants provide continuing support for the anti-diphtheria campaign the World Health Organisation launched in late 1994 with UNICEF and IFRC. ECHO's contribution prior to this fresh funding amounts to 3.6 MECU. Thanks to the campaign, the number of cases reported in the Russian Federation has been declining since July, but elsewhere both the number of cases and death rates are still climbing.