Real Madrid news: Sergio Ramos raises a million dollars for UNICEF in 12 hours

What's the story?

Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos has helped UNICEF raise a million dollars in the organisation's bid to raise funds to provide vaccinations to children.

In case you didn't know

Ramos, who has been injured since the start of April, has been associated with UNICEF since 2007 and was named the UNICEF Spanish Committee's ambassador in 2014.

The defender has taken part in solidarity matches like Champions for Africa and Champions for Life and has visited several survival programs in his role as ambassador.

The defender's current campaign with UNICEF, which is funded by Gates Foundation, comes in the backdrop of widespread misinformation regarding vaccinations, especially in the United States where anti-vaccination campaigns have been persuading parents to stop vaccinating their children. As a result, the country has witnessed the largest outbreak since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000.

Speaking of the situation, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said "The United States is seeing a resurgence of measles, a disease that had once been effectively eliminated from our country."

The heart of the matter

Ramos had recently posted a picture from one of his visits to a UNICEF campaign on Instagram, in an effort to raise funds for children vaccinations.

The photo was accompanied by a caption that read, "Vaccines save between 2 and 3 million lives every year. For every like this photo receives, #GatesFoundation will donate 1 dollar to @unicef projects. #VaccinesWork".

In the span of 12 hours, the picture hit over a million 'likes' on the social media platform, with the numbers still expecting to rise.

The post currently has over 1.4 million likes which is enough to buy 14 million measles vaccinations.