Migration and Covid-19 Resources

This global public health emergency brings into focus and may exacerbate, the barriers to healthcare these populations face. Many migrants & refugee populations live in conditions where physical distancing and recommended hygiene measures are particularly challenging.

The COVID-19 pandemic reveals the extent of marginalisation migrant & refugee populations face. We have developed a resource platform to encourage knowledge sharing across different regions globally and to highlight the need to include migrants and refugees in the COVID-19 response.

Read our global statement ‘Leaving no one behind in the COVID-19 Pandemic: a call for urgent global action to include migrants in the COVID-19 response’

To join our Global Call to Action for urgent inclusion of migrants & refugees in the COVID-19 response enter your details below

This series of situational and policy briefs summarises key practical and operational aspects of the COVID-19 response in relation to migrants and refugees.

They include public health and policy recommendations and perspectives that build on the Lancet Migration Global Statement recommendations to ensure migrants and refugees: have access to healthcare; are included in prevention, preparedness and response; and are part of responsible and transparent public information strategies, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Each is intended to be a short brief, providing key information on particular migrant and refugee contexts and thematics, rather than a fully comprehensive country or regional overview. Situational and policy briefs have been authored by experts working in academia, operational, or clinical areas of migration and COVID-19, and are hosted on the Lancet Migration website. Situational and policy briefs represent the views of the authors.

They are up to date at the time of writing but will be updated by authors at intervals as feasible.

• The Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants ‘The COVID-19 pandemic: we need urgent measures to protect people and mend the cracks in our health, social protection and migration systems‘
• ​The Word Health Organisation, Regional Office for Europe, ‘Measures against COVID-19 need to include refugees and migrants’
• The Migrant and Ethnic Health Section of EUPHA, ‘Reducing the impact of the coronavirus crisis on those ‘left behind’ – Disadvantaged Migrants and Ethnic Minorities (MEM)’

​Operational guidance:

• Interim guidance from the Inter-agency Standing Committee on ‘Scaling up Covid-19 outbreak, readiness and response in  operations in humanitarian situations’
• European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control: ‘Guidance on infection prevention and control of COVID-19 in migrant and refugee reception and detention centres in the EU/EEA and the UK’
• United Nations Network on Migration, Working group on alternatives to immigration detention: ‘COVID-19 & Immigration Detention: What Can Governments and Other Stakeholders Do?
• COVID-19 Humanitarian Platform: This open-access web-based platform promotes the exchange of field-based COVID-19 program adaptations and innovations, facilitating learning among organizations in different sectors and contexts. A joint initiative by the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, the Health in Humanitarian Crises at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Geneva Centre of Education.

July 15th 2020 – COVID-19 & the health of migrants, refugees and ethnic minorities:

• A panel discussion exploring perspectives from academia, policy and practice
• Organised as part of University College London, Institute for Risk and Disaster
• Reduction, 10th Annual Conference. Video recording of the webinar to be uploaded shortly.

 5th August at 17:00 BST (11:00 GM-5) COVID-19 and Migration in Latin America

Speakers from different countries and organisations across the region offered perspectives from academia, policy and practice.