CHICAGO (AP) — The city of Chicago is receiving more than $5 million in federal funding to provide vaccines to children from low-income families.
U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth announced Thursday that the $5.2 million is coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccines for Children Program.
Chicago’s Department of Public Health will use it to vaccinate children whose parents may not be able to afford it.
Durbin says the money will make the city “a healthier place to live and raise a family.”
Congress created the Vaccines for Children Program after hundreds of people died between 1989 and 1991 from a measles epidemic. The CDC later found more than half the kids who had measles hadn’t been immunized.
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