At a time when countries collect vaccines for their people, to immunize them against the Corona virus and its deadly mutated strains, there is still a group of people neglected, and they are about 26 million refugees around the world.
Experts say that in order to obtain herd immunity, the refugee issue must be included in the national efforts exerted to immunize against Corona, as it is important to end this pandemic. But refugees, most of whom have fled conflict or persecution in their own countries, are not included in most vaccination plans in the countries in which they live. Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees, amounting to 3.6 million refugees, but it has not announced whether these refugees are included in its plans for vaccination, nor is Pakistan, which hosts about 1.4 million refugees.
Less injuries
At first glance, the Coronavirus may not appear to be a big problem for refugees. Despite the passage of nearly a year for this pandemic, the number of infected people among the refugees appears to be less than what experts expected. There is a possible explanation for this, which is that most refugees are largely young, as half of the number of these refugees is under the age of 18, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and refugee camps are usually isolated from urban areas, where the virus spreads more quickly. .
But information is still scarce, and the number of infections may not be known yet, because the refugees were not examined, due to the limited supplies and capacities in the refugee camps, which makes it difficult to accurately determine the extent of the virus’s spread among the population. “We are working in the dark now about the extent to which refugees are affected by the Coronavirus,” said Paul Spiegel, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Human Health. We do not see the exact extent of the virus’s spread. In general, the numbers of refugees face several major obstacles that complicate global efforts to control the virus.
Difficulty implementing procedures
Many of the practices generally used to mitigate the spread of the virus, such as social distancing and wearing masks, are difficult – if not impossible – to implement among refugees, especially in camps and densely populated settlements. The special advisor to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Annie Sparrow, said: These conditions are like “ducks sitting in order to spread the Corona virus.”
Refugees sometimes refrain from reporting cases of coronavirus infection, to avoid discrimination against them, especially after they were falsely blamed for spreading the Coronavirus at the start of the pandemic.
Spiegel said, “There is a possibility that we lack information about those who went to hospitals, or even about deaths due to the virus, because they do not want to know anything about their conditions related to the Corona virus.”
The problem of strains
There is also the problem of strains, which have appeared in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. The lack of information among refugees has fueled concern about how the spread of these more deadly and faster strains will affect refugee populations. Given that many countries hosting large numbers of refugees lack the performance and capacity to conduct the necessary genetic analysis to detect these strains, there is no way to confirm the extent of their presence or spread, which is a matter of concern, because some strains lead to a decrease in potency. The vaccine.
Then comes the simple question of getting vaccinations. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, appealed to the countries that manufacture vaccines to make them available to “all the people of the world” and to see their distribution as “global goods”, but not all countries abided by Guterres’ claim. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 51 out of 90 countries, or 57% of the countries that have developed plans for vaccinations, said they would include refugees in these plans. And we will see the extent of these countries’ commitment to their commitments. Until now, Jordan was one of the first few countries to start vaccinating refugees on its soil. “Talking about refugees and getting vaccinated are two different things,” Spiegel said.
The complexity of the issue
The issue is further complicated, which is that most refugees live in middle or low-income countries, where some struggle to obtain the vaccine in a global market full of intense competition, where the rich countries whose population constitute 16% of the world’s population, have been able to obtain 60% of the world’s vaccine supply.
As for the poor countries, they can obtain vaccines from a charitable organization known as “Gateway to Global Vaccines” (Kovacs), which works to provide free vaccinations to 20% of the world’s poorest countries before the end of 2021. And to ensure that the people of the world’s poorest countries are protected. From the virus, Kovacs established the last-minute emergency blocker program, which secures 5% of the vaccines’ doses for humanitarian purposes. “It is not important that you be a citizen or a refugee, because the virus will infect you, because it does not differentiate between a refugee and a citizen,” said the director of programs for the Coalition for Syria.
Even if a vaccine was available, people would have to take doses, but misinformation about the vaccine poses another challenge. As is the case in the United States, where incorrect information about the vaccine hinders vaccination efforts, and where a third of American soldiers refuse to use the vaccine, a trend that has spread among the American population, and has been afflicted by refugees, many of whom feared they would become test rats for possible experiments, or be sterilized (make them) Sterile). “We need to work with them to make sure that when the vaccine becomes available, they really get it,” Spiegel said.
All of these obstacles are important, because achieving herd immunity is the best way to protect us from the persistence of the virus from killing us.
Herd immunity
But experts do not expect, even with these efforts, that the majority of refugees will receive the vaccine in the foreseeable future. Obtaining herd immunity requires the presence of antibodies in at least 70% of people, but given that the first shipment sent by “Kovacs” does not cover only 3% of the population of the countries participating in this organization, and that most doses are intended for care workers. For health, it takes many years for poor countries to achieve herd immunity. “There is no way to reach herd immunity or even that we will be close to it within the next two or three years,” said the head of the health unit in the International Rescue Committee, Mesfin Tiklo Tesima. He added that, thanks to the new strains, the herd immunity threshold would be reached further.
In fact, the implications of not distributing vaccines to poor countries will not be limited to overcrowded camps, but rather on global efforts made to eliminate the Coronavirus. “The stakes are high,” said the public health official at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the world, Mike Woodman.
Ethical questions facing the world
Mankind is experiencing a difficult “moral” moment, as if we are faced with options resembling the crisis of the heroine in the movie “A Sophie’s Choice”, when she made a choice in Auschwitz between saving her son or daughter.
How do health authorities choose the groups most at risk if the number of vaccines is limited? And if supplies dwindle, is it fair to vaccinate the sick and the elderly, or to vaccinate the young?
In light of “Covid-19”, people had to live the brunt of the crude consequences of the current health and social policies: your place of birth, your nationality, your social class, your gender at birth are all factors that will determine your chances of survival, whether in terms of your access to basic needs of food and safety during Quarantine, or in terms of obtaining the necessary hospital care. For the BBC
• At first glance, the Coronavirus may not seem like a big problem with regard to refugees. Despite the passage of nearly a year for this pandemic, the number of infected people among the refugees appears to be less than what experts expected.
• What adds to the complexity of the issue is that most refugees live in middle or low-income countries, where some struggle to obtain the vaccine in a global market full of intense competition, and where the rich countries whose population constitutes 16% of the world’s population, have been able to obtain 60 % Of the world’s vaccine supply.
Christina Law – Writer for Foreign Policy
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