CORRESPONDENCE | THE LANCET | VOLUME 395, ISSUE 10235, P1482-1483, MAY 09, 2020

Global call to action for inclusion of migrants and refugees in the COVID-19 response

• Miriam Orcutt
• Parth Patel
• Rachel Burns
• Lucinda Hiam
• Rob Aldridge
• Delan Devakumar
• Bernadette Kumar
• Paul Spiegel
• Ibrahim Abubakar

“Lancet Migration¹ calls for migrants and refugees to be urgently included in responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.² Many of these populations live, travel, and work in conditions where physical distancing and recommended hygiene measures are impossible because of poor living conditions³ and great economic precarity. This global public health emergency highlights the exclusion and multiple barriers to health care⁴ that are faced by migrants and refugees, among whom COVID-19 threatens to have rapid and devastating effects.⁵ From an enlightened self-interest perspective, measures to control the outbreak of COVID-19 will only be successful if all populations are included in the national and international responses. Moreover, excluding migrants and refugees contradicts the commitment to leave no one behind and the ethics of justice that underpin public health. Principles of solidarity, human rights, and equity must be central to the COVID-19 response; otherwise the world risks leaving behind those who are most marginalised. Join our global call to action for the inclusion of migrants and refugees in the COVID-19 response (panel).”

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