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A28 WORLD NEWS
Thursday 23 april 2020
Lack of virus testing stokes fears in world's refugee camps

By JOSEPH KRAUSS, RISHABH 217,000 people live in end- where the decade-long ernment conducted 150 put food on the table. "All of
R. JAIN and CARA ANNA less rows of tents. "We will all civil war has displaced random tests, all of which a sudden, they've become
Associated Press perish." more than half of the came back negative, said invisible, locked away be-
There are over 70 million hind closed doors," said
people worldwide who Marianne Manjivar, Inter-
have been driven from their national Rescue Commit-
homes by war and unrest, tee director for Colombia
up to 10 million are packed and Venezuela.
into refugee camps and ___
informal settlements, and 'NO DOCTORS CAN SAVE
almost none have been US'
tested for the coronavirus. There's been little if any
While the relative isolation testing in Cox's Bazar, in
of many camps may have southern Bangladesh,
slowed the virus' spread, where more than a million
none is hermetically sealed. members of Myanmar's
Without testing, as the world Rohingya Muslim minority
has seen repeatedly, the vi- are packed into the world's
rus can spread unchecked largest refugee camp.
until people start showing Kate White, the emergen-
symptoms. That could have cy medical coordinator for
catastrophic results among Doctors Without Borders,
the world's refugees: There said there is "very limited
will be few if any intensive testing capacity" in Bangla-
care beds or ventilators for In this April 15, 2020, photograph, a health worker from an aid organization walks wearing a desh, with most of it in the
them. There might not even hazmat suit at the Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. capital, Dhaka, some 250
be gloves or masks. Associated Press. miles (400 kilometers) away.
"Testing is in short supply While cases have been re-
even in New York and Nor- Western countries, which population of 23 million. Dominik Bartsch, the head ported in the district, none
way, but it is nonexistent in by then may have con- At least 350 health facili- of U.N. refugee agency in have been detected inside
most of the countries in the tained their own outbreaks, ties have been bombed, Jordan. Residents of Azraq, the camp. There, refugees
(global) south for the peo- will have to reckon with the mostly by the government. home to about 40,000, will still gather in large groups
ple we try to help," Jan Ege- fact that if the virus finds More than 900 medical be tested soon. to collect aid, and humani-
land, the head of the Nor- refuge among the world's staff have been killed and On Wednesday in Leba- tarian workers are prepar-
wegian Refugee Council, most vulnerable, it could countless more have fled. non, a Palestinian woman ing for the worst.
told The Associated Press. return anytime. No cases have been re- from Syria became the first The U.N. refugee agency
His group recently con- Some refugee camps have ported yet in Syria's north- refugee living in a camp to is building isolation and
ducted a review of all 30 been around so long they western Idlib province, the test positive, sparking fear treatment centers that can
countries where it operates have apartment blocks last bastion of opposition and a spate of testing by house 150-200 patients.
and found virtually no test- and paved roads. Oth- to President Bashar Assad health officials to see if any It is also distributing soap
ing before people became ers are little more than and where heavy fight- other residents had been and talking about how to
sick. clusters of tents or aban- ing forced nearly a million infected. prevent the virus' spread,
Refugees have already doned buildings. In many, people to flee their homes "We don't need the camp but a government ban on
tested positive in Italy, Ger- cramped conditions and earlier this year. managers to tell us how se- cellphone and internet ser-
many, Iran, Australia and poor infrastructure can Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian phy- rious the virus is. We see it in vices in the camps has hin-
Greece, where authori- make it impossible to prac- sician based in Chicago the news and read about dered those efforts.
ties said Tuesday that 150 tice social distancing and who heads MedGlobal, an it," said an anxious Massoud Sakina Khatun, who lives
people living in a quar- frequent hand-washing. international health NGO, Ali, 35, who fled Syria for a with her husband and
antined hotel for asylum- There are no official figures calls that a "miracle." camp in neighboring Iraq in seven children in a small
seekers had contracted for the number of refugees He notes that the entire October. bamboo and tarp hut, said
the coronavirus, and none who live in camps, but Ege- province, which is home ___ "the virus will kill everything
displayed symptoms of land estimates they make to 4 million people, has 98 BECOMING 'INVISIBLE' it touches" if it enters the
COVID-19. up 10% to 15% of all refu- ventilators, compared to Refugees living outside camps. "No doctors can
In Syria's war-ravaged Idlib gees and displaced peo- 230 in the Advocate Christ camps are also uniquely save us then."
province, only one tiny ple, a population the U.N. Medical Center, where he vulnerable. ___
health facility is equipped estimates at over 70 million. is a critical care special- Nearly 5 million Venezu- 'IT WILL CERTAINLY COME
to receive suspected coro- Most people who become ist. An outbreak would be elans have fled economic BACK'
navirus cases. In the world's infected experience mild "catastrophic," he said. chaos, crossing by foot There's a similar sense of
largest refugee camp, in to moderate symptoms. But The World Health Organiza- and bus into neighboring foreboding in conflict zones
Bangladesh, aid workers the virus can cause severe tion has sent 5,900 testing Colombia and other coun- across Africa.
are racing to build isolation illness and lead to death, kits to Idlib, where they are tries. Burkina Faso is grappling
facilities. In two sprawling particularly among older being carefully rationed. Many live in crowded with one of the world's fast-
camps in Kenya, Somalis people and those with un- Authorities have carried apartments in Bogota, est growing displacement
who survived decades of derlying health problems. out around 200 tests so far, which has the bulk of Co- crises, with 800,000 people
famine and war fear the It is highly contagious and all of which came back lombia's coronavirus cases, having fled attacks by ji-
worst is yet to come. can be spread by those negative. and work as street vendors hadis in recent months.
"If it's killing people daily in who appear healthy. In Jordan, the two larg- — jobs now prohibited. "We ran away from the ter-
America, then what do you ___ est camps for Syrian refu- During the capital city's rorists and came here, but
think will happen to us?" A 'MIRACLE' THAT NO CAS- gees have been sealed lockdown, many have now there's the corona-
asked Mariam Abdi, a veg- ES HAVE BEEN FOUND since last month. In Zaatari, been evicted from rentals virus, and we don't know
etable vendor in Kenya's The coronavirus has al- which has about 80,000 res- and fined for being on the what will happen," said
Dadaab camp, where ready appeared in Syria, idents, the Jordanian gov- streets as they struggle to Boureima Gassambe. q