The UN refugee agency on Wednesday pointed out that the highly-infectious Covid-19 variant first detected in India “threatens” to rapidly spread in the Asia-Pacific region and that there was vaccine shortages for the people including for asylum-seekers and refugees.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Andrej Mahecic, at a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, said that the fragile health systems in many countries in the Asia and Pacific region have struggled to cope with the recent surge of coronavirus cases.
“We are particularly worried about the situation in the Asia and Pacific region, which in the past two months has experienced the largest increase in the number of cases globally,” he said. The UNHCR spokesperson said that over this period, there have been some 38 million recorded COVID-19 cases and more than half a million deaths.
“The lack of hospital beds, oxygen supplies, limited Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacities and scarce health facilities and services have worsened outcomes for those infected with COVID-19, particularly in India and Nepal. The highly infectious variant of the virus which first emerged in India threatens to rapidly spread in the sub-region, including among refugee populations,” Mahecic said.
The B.1.617 COVID-19 variant, first detected in India, is divided in three lineages -- B.1.617.1, B.1.617.2 and B.1.617.3.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that only B.1.617.2 is now a “variant of concern”, observing that lower rates of transmission have been observed for the other two lineages, making them no longer variants of concern.
The B.1.617.2 is now labelled variant Delta and has been reported in 62 countries as of June 1. With COVID-19 raging in many parts of the world, the UNHCR warned of shortages of vaccines in the Asia-Pacific region, including for refugees and asylum-seekers.
Mahecic said: “We urge an immediate and stronger support for the COVAX initiative, a worldwide effort aimed at achieving equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. This is critical to save lives and curb the impact of the virus, particularly in developing nations. These countries host the vast majority of more than 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world. Yet so far, they have benefited from only a fraction of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines.” More so, when refugees remain especially vulnerable to the spread of Covid-19, it said. Overcrowded settings, coupled with limited water and sanitation facilities, can contribute to increased infection rates and an exponential spread of the virus.
“The pandemic will be defeated only when vaccinations become available everywhere on an equitable basis,” the agency said.
It said that the current delays in vaccine shipments, brought about by limited supplies to COVAX, mean that some of the world’s most vulnerable people remain susceptible to the virus. “The UNHCR is adding its voice to the calls for countries with surplus doses to donate to COVAX, and for manufacturers to boost supplies to the COVAX facility,” Mahecic said.