Edited News | UNHCR , UNITED NATIONS
Refugee health workers step up for coronavirus response in Latin America
As an increase COVID-19 cases mount pressure on already over-stretched health systems in Latin America, countries across the region are planning to rely on refugee and migrant health workers to support their national responses to COVID-19.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is supporting efforts that tap into the skills and resources that refugee medics can provide.
“Several countries in the region are now putting in place special measures. These authorize the hiring of foreign-qualified health professionals and technicians, including those awaiting licensing or whose certification is yet to be validated by host countries,” said Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) at a press briefing in Geneva . “Other states have adopted expedited recognition processes to fast-track their inclusion in national health responses”.
Across Latin America, thousands of refugees are already working with national health systems in the pandemic response, while many more stand ready to give back to the communities sheltering them.
Peru has now authorized the hiring of foreign certified health professionals -- of any nationality -- to support the COVID-19 response. Argentina and Chile have approved the hiring of health professionals whose qualifications have not yet been validated by national authorities.
“With a number of refugees studying medicine on government-supported scholarships in Cuba, refugee students in their third year of medical school or above are now also able to join the emergency response”, UNHCR’s Shabia Mantoo said. “In Brazil, Cuban doctors have also been exceptionally authorized to work on national health responses across the country”.
In Colombia, the Ministry of Health is collaborating with the Association of Health Professionals to draw in Venezuelan health workers.
“Networks of foreign health professionals are also being formed across the region to offer their knowledge and experience in support of their host countries,” Ms. Mantoo said. “Through its contact with refugee and asylum seeker communities, UNHCR is aware of thousands of forcibly displaced health workers who have expressed their willingness to work alongside their peers in the COVID-19 response” she added.
UNHCR has been supporting refugee inclusion efforts to help with the Covid-19 response in Latin America and around the world. In Mexico, UNHCR works with federal authorities to establish an expedited mechanism for the recognition of qualified and experienced refugee and asylum seeker health workers to join the country’s emergency recruitment pool.
“Latin America has shown deep generosity in the face of an unprecedented forced displacement crisis in Venezuela that has impacted nearly every country in the region”, UNHCR’s Shabia Mantoo said. “The coronavirus pandemic is now compounding an already desperate situation for many refugees and their hosts”.
The UN Refugee Agency continues to advocate for the inclusion of refugees in national health systems, in the belief that this will help not only to protect the rights of refugees but will also serve to protect public health by halting the global spread of COVID-19.
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Edited News | WHO , OHCHR
Gaza aid site horror continues as more starving people shot trying to get food
Amid intensifying hopes for a new Gaza ceasefire, UN humanitarians confirmed disturbing details on Friday of continued killings and injuries of Palestinians desperately seeking food at aid sites.
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Edited News | OCHA
A clearer picture of needs across Iran is beginning to emerge after the conflict this month with Israel, which left hundreds dead, several hospitals hit and a spike in Afghan refugees returning home, the UN’s top official in Tehran said on Tuesday.
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Edited News | WMO
The blistering early-summer heatwave that’s brought life-threatening temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere is a worrying sign of things to come, UN weather experts said on Tuesday.
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Edited News | OHCHR
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk made the following remarks to the Human Rights Council annual panel on adverse impacts of climate change.
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Edited News | WHO
The first meagre midweek delivery of urgently needed medical goods to enter Gaza in months will provide scant relief to the enclave’s people, who continue to be shot and killed as they search for food, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
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Statements , Edited News | HRC
Enhanced interactive dialogue on the High Commissioner’s report on Myanmar presented by Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and oral update by Thomas Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
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Edited News | UNOG
The conflict-impacted people of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) urgently need much more international assistance than they are getting today, the UN’s top aid official said on Thursday.
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Edited News | UNOG
Violence in Myanmar is spiralling as the military junta increases its attacks on monasteries, schools and camps sheltering people uprooted by the civil war, a top independent human rights investigator warned on Wednesday.
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Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan on Palestinians killed seeking food in Gaza
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Edited News | OHCHR
Iran-Israel war: UN rights office concerned over strike on Tehran prison, reported espionage arrests
Tehran’s notorious Evin prison known for holding dissidents should not be a target, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday, a day after a reported Israeli strike on the complex.
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Edited News | UNICEF , WHO
Death and suffering in Gaza are ever-present and the enclave's people now have little choice but to risk their lives to fetch aid supplies, UN agencies said on Friday. “I met a little boy who was wounded by a tank shell at one of these sites on the final day of me leaving Gaza - I learnt that this little boy had since died of those injuries,” said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder. “That speaks to both what is happening at these sites and what is not happening when it comes to medical evacuations.”
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Edited News | UNCTAD
UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) launched today the World Investment Report 2025. Global foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 11%, marking the second consecutive year of decline and confirming a deepening slowdown in productive capital flows, according to the report.