Other deadly diseases spreading globally because of COVID-19 disruption

[DonViejo]

With coronavirus as the world's focus, inoculation campaigns for measles, rubella, polio and other diseases lag

By Rachel Oswald
Posted March 10, 2021 at 7:00am

While the world is understandably focused on countering the coronavirus pandemic, a secondary global public health crisis has been brewing: a drop-off in vaccination rates against a range of other dangerous infectious diseases.

A year ago, when much of the world’s population began to socially distance to reduce the spread of COVID-19, an unfortunate consequence of that countermeasure was a steep decline in the number of children receiving their routine vaccinations for diseases such as measles, rubella and polio.

Comprehensive figures are not yet available for how many children around the world have missed their shots in the past year because of COVID-19, but experts say it is a serious worry.

“I am very concerned that a lot of children are not getting the vaccinations they would normally have received, and I think that’s another issue underneath the pandemic that we’re going to have to address,” Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee with oversight of international development, told CQ Roll Call.

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https://www.rollcall.com/2021/03/10/other-deadly-diseases-spreading-globally-because-of-covid-19-disruption/