COVID-19 Global Roundup: Impact on refugee and migrant camps

Poor sanitation, cramped living conditions, pervasiveness of illnesses, and lack of access to medical care and clean water – attributes that are generally characteristic of refugee and migrant camps and makeshift settlements for displaced people – constitute a potential humanitarian catastrophe threatening tens of millions of people from Bangladesh to Syria and across Africa.

Camps across the world have previously experienced outbreaks of measles, diphtheria and other respiratory infections, and the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and Ebola epidemics did not lead to large-scale infections or mass deaths of refugees.

But the latest coronavirus, which has exceeded all previous outbreaks and already claimed more than 81,000 lives, is undeniably a far greater threat looming over the exposed refugees. 

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