Outline for speech

With the spread of the corona virus many 3rd world countries and poorer countries have seen an increase

Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Cholera is in South Sudan, Cameroon, Mozambique, Yemen and Bangladesh.

A mutated strain of poliovirus has been reported in more than 30 countries.

And measles is flaring around the globe, including in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.

Because immunizations have had to stop being provided for these countries as no medical worker is left that is not currently fighting covid as well as all cargo planes and shipments being stopped because of the virus.

According to the  Measles and Rubella Initiative , 178 million people are at risk of missing measles shots in 2020.

At stake is the future of a hard-fought, 20-year collaboration that has prevented 35 million deaths in 98 countries from  vaccine-preventable diseases , and reduced mortality from them in children by 44 percent, according to a  2019 study by the Vaccine Impact Modeling Consortium,  a group of public health scholars.

Immunization is one of the most powerful and fundamental disease prevention tools in the history of public health,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,  director general of the W.H.O ., in a statement.

“We will have countries trying to recover from Covid and then facing measles. It would stretch their health systems further and have serious economic and humanitarian consequences,” said Dr. Robin Nandy, chief of immunization for UNICEF,