{"id":39879,"date":"2022-05-04T10:04:44","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T10:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmjgh\/?p=39879"},"modified":"2024-02-11T03:09:39","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T03:09:39","slug":"covid-19-could-slow-the-humanitarian-response-for-the-ukraine-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmjgh\/2022\/05\/04\/covid-19-could-slow-the-humanitarian-response-for-the-ukraine-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 could slow the humanitarian response for the Ukraine crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

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COVID-19 incidence is decreasing after a recent surge across Europe. However, 2.8 million deaths were reported in the week 20th<\/sup> April<\/a> just after COVID-19 precautions throughout the EU have been scaled back dramatically. Poland, which has welcomed the majority of Ukrainian refugees, ended its indoor mask mandate<\/a> on March 28 for all public spaces except for hospitals and has rolled back testing, quarantine and isolation precautions. The continued COVID-19 cases across Europe has the potential to pose a risk to refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine and to slow essential humanitarian aid work.<\/p>\n

Host communities with a rapid population influx\u2014over 5 million people have already fled<\/a> Ukraine and more are leaving daily \u00a0<\/sup>\u2014are an ideal environment for a COVID-19 resurgence. The refugees entering neighbouring countries are largely unvaccinated, which makes them vulnerable to infection and severe illness. Ukraine has an adult population that\u2019s 34% vaccinated and 10% boosted and their paediatric vaccination campaign was in its infancy when the invasion began.<\/p>\n

Refugees are congregating in the thousands in train stations and at border crossings and staying in emergency shelters as they transit through to safety in Europe. Ukrainians fleeing unspeakable violence and ongoing attacks are understandably focused on survival and reuniting with their families, not\u2014COVID-19. But we in the international aid community have the capacity and the resources to mitigate the risk. Operating in complexity is the very nature of humanitarian aid work and strengthening coordination between agencies is a foundational pillar of how the humanitarian community operates. Now, in Ukraine and surrounding countries, there is an urgent need to expand that unified approach in how aid agencies coordinate on COVID-19.<\/p>\n

The most recent guidance<\/a> available for COVID-19 in humanitarian settings is from May 2020, published by WHO and a consortium of humanitarian partners. This guidance is outdated and does not directly address the humanitarian aid workforce. It does not reflect the current epidemiological situation of COVID-19, the emergence of new variants and other factors such as population immunity. It was developed prior to the availability and uptake of vaccines and self-administered antigen testing and is misaligned with the current understanding of the period of infectiousness and reduced isolation periods. Additionally, \u00a0updated WHO recommendations<\/a> for mask use in community settings where physical distancing cannot be maintained is not reflected. Furthermore, the existing guidance is focused on camp-like settings which fails to meet the needs of a dispersed humanitarian response operating across multiple countries.<\/p>\n

Humanitarian aid organizations have varying occupational COVID-19 standards for their workers covering testing, quarantine, exposure and isolation requirements. Those standards are often based on the COVID-19 guidance in the countries where the organizations are based and may not be applicable in the Ukraine context. It\u2019s unclear: Should organizations default to local COVID-19 policies where they are operating\u2014guidance clearly not developed with a war and massive displacement in mind? If aid workers become infected with COVID-19 what are the isolation requirements? How might this potentially burden local health systems in terms of testing and hospitalizations? And how do we gauge the risk to refugees and host populations?<\/p>\n

In Poland, where Americares has set up its base of operations for the crisis, we\u2019ve seen aid organizations modify their mode of working in recognition of the COVID-19 threat. Some coordination meetings are being held remotely with Signal, WhatsApp and other messaging applications. However, there is no overarching guidance in a context of crowded humanitarian locations necessitating frequent contact and potential exposures.<\/p>\n

There is an urgent need for COVID-19 guidance for humanitarian aid workers with buy-in across aid agencies to ensure continuity of operations and protect the humanitarian workforce, refugees and host communities. This guidance will likely need to be distinct and in addition<\/em> to guidance from the countries where groups are operating.<\/p>\n

This guidance may consider:<\/p>\n