The first Rohingya refugee has died from covid-19 in a Bangladeshi camp. Our article from May explains why the camps are the ideal breeding-ground for the virus
EPIDEMIOLOGISTS AND health workers have long dreaded an outbreak of coronavirus in the world’s refugee camps. Tightly packed, insanitary, with high proportions of poor, under-nourished people, they are the ideal breeding-ground for the disease. On May 14th it came to pass at last, and in the biggest camp of them all, Kutupalong, in Cox’s Bazar, a sliver of land in southern Bangladesh adjacent to Myanmar. Two people tested positive for the virus, one a Rohingya refugee.
That such swift and decisive action was taken by the authorities is testimony to the acute anxiety in the camps since the arrival of the novel coronavirus in Bangladesh. The 160m Bangladeshis, living in an extremely densely populated country, are more vulnerable than most to the spread of the virus. The Rohingyas, however, must be among the most vulnerable of all.
Fearing the worst, aid agencies had been preparing for an outbreak of the virus for months. As of the end of March, according to the WHO, 18 treatment and isolation centres had been constructed in the camps, just to treat coronavirus patients, with 72 beds immediately available to patients and a further 257 available at short notice.
There is very limited testing and it is now a race against time to contain the outbreak before it sweeps through the camps. Hearsay and disinformation about the disease travel even faster, making it hard for health workers to trace those who might have come into contact with those infected. One rumour is that the virus is a ploy by the Bangladeshi authorities to kill them, or at least get them out of the country.
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