655 million dollars needed to avert new measles and polio epidemics: UN



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Nurse Agnes of Bwindi Community Hospital administers a polio vaccination during a polio and measles vaccination program for infants in the community. The clinic is in Kitahurira, the only Batwa tribe settlement in the Mpungu district. Bwindi Community Hospital offers several care clinics in the surrounding area around Buhoma on a daily basis. Mpungu District is located on the edge of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in western Uganda. (Photo by In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to measles and polio immunization campaigns, thereby putting millions of vulnerable children at risk for life-threatening diseases, UN agencies said Friday.

The UN launched an urgent call for funding to ward off epidemics, saying $ 655 million was needed to fill “dangerous immune gaps” in poor and middle-income countries.

“We cannot allow the fight against a deadly disease to cause us to lose ground in the fight against other diseases,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement.

According to Fore, the $ 655 million needed includes $ 400 million for polio and $ 255 million for measles.

Vaccine coverage gaps were further exacerbated by COVID-19 in 2020, and WHO said the measles death rate data for 2019, which is expected to be released next week, “will show the continuing negative toll. prolonged epidemics are having “.

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