Red Cross warns of lack of access to vaccines for migrants

2021-03-09T07:41:23.482Z

Is the vaccine race a rich country affair? Without doubt, if we look at the quantity of doses received by Western countries. But vaccines are also a matter of status. Thousands ...

Red Cross warns of lack of access to vaccines for migrants

Refugees and migrants from the destroyed Moria camp settled in a temporary camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece, September 16, 2020. REUTERS / Alkis Konstantinidis

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

Is the vaccine race a rich country affair?

Without doubt, if we look at the quantity of doses received by Western countries.

But vaccines are also a matter of status.

Millions of migrants are today excluded from vaccination programs against Covid-19.

In Geneva, the Red Cross reminds that the virus will continue to circulate if everyone is not vaccinated.

It doesn't matter whether he has papers or not.

Publicity

With our correspondent in Geneva,

Jérémie Lanche

In its report, the Red Cross speaks of the “invisible wall” that stands in the way of migrants who want to protect themselves from the pandemic.

Especially those who have no status.

This is the case in Greece, where 50,000 people who do not have a social security number do not have access to vaccination.

This is also the case in Poland and the Dominican Republic where vaccines are reserved for residents.

But even in countries that have opened their program, other barriers, material, exist.

So says Tiziana Bonzon, Migration Manager at the International Federation of the Red Cross.

“

We live

in a world that is increasingly digital and digital, where even making appointments with the doctor is now done online.
Well, when you just have the money to pay for something to eat, you don't necessarily have internet access and you don't have the means to make these appointments.
It gets complicated.

The study conducted by the Red Cross shows that in the United States and Great Britain, migrants who might qualify for vaccination do not do so for fear of being registered by authorities and deported.

But there are counter-examples.

Colombia, for example, has decided to include nearly 2 million

Venezuelan refugees in its vaccination program

And in Jordan, the authorities have already delivered the first doses of vaccines to Syrian refugee camps when the country has not yet secured enough doses to cover its entire population.

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See also: The United Nations calls for coordination of vaccination against Covid-19

Red Cross warns of lack of access to vaccines for migrants

Red Cross warns of lack of access to vaccines for migrants

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