Almost 300 million students from different countries are not in school as governments canceled classes as part of efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease or COVID-19, according to UNESCO.
The latest countries are Italy and India.
There are more than 95,000 people have been infected and over 3,200 have died from more than 80 countries on Thursday, Agence France Presse reported.
Most of the cases are in China, where the virus originated in Wuhan City in Hubei province.
In China alone, entire cities are quarantined, factories were temporarily shut aside from the closure of schools.
UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said, “the global scale and speed of the current educational disruption is unparalleled and, if prolonged, could threaten the right to education”.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund said $50 billion in aid is available for low-income and emerging-market countries to fight the epidemic, which it considers a “serious threat” that would slow global growth to below last year’s 2.9 percent.
“At a time of uncertainty… it is better to do more than to do not enough,” IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said.
