Hello and welcome to News Hour live from the BBC World Service in London.

I'm Rebecca Kessby.

Coming up in just a moment we'll be taking a look at the rollout of vaccines to tackle the

impacts virus that begins in the Democratic Republic of Congo today. Also later

in the program how a dramatic drop in the US bat population 20 years ago led

to an increase in infant mortality years later and also we'll be speaking to Eugene Hootes who's a Ukrainian-born

singer in the US-based group Gogel-Bordello and he tells us how he's been

entertaining Ukrainian troops when they return from the front line.

It was amazing to see music being like a psychic oasis to people who are in active warfare.

For the duration of the time, they can transport it.

That's the thing about music.

It can't change the world, but it can transport you temporarily,

elevate, levitate to certain degrees. More on that story to come, but let's begin the program by heading to the Democratic

Republic of Congo because as I mentioned today the country begins the rollout of

its M. POCs vaccine program the first 100,000 doses or so donated by the European Union have arrived

and are to be distributed in the east of the country, that's the epicenter of this outbreak.

Empox has claimed the lives of at least 650 people in the DRC

so far, but it's highly infectious and more than 19,000 cases have been recorded in the country.

Children are especially vulnerable to the disease

and are less likely to survive the illness.

But for the health authorities

coordinating the vaccine program in an area of the country in the

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