Two Rohingya refugees on Thursday tested positive for the coronavirus in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee camp, BBC reported. The camp houses nearly one million people.
Officials told BBC that the patients were being treated in isolation. About 1,900 other refugees will be tested for Covid-19, they added. Louise Donovan, a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency, told AP that they have formed teams for the treatment of patients and tracing their contacts.
Aid workers have repeatedly flagged the possibility of a serious outbreak if the highly-contagious virus reached the overcrowded camp.
The camp’s population density is over 40 times Bangladesh’s average, with about 40,000 people per square kilometre living in plastic shacks, according to the news agency. Each shack is barely 107 square feet and many house up to 12 people.
Subjected to ethnic violence, mass rapes and killings by Myanmar’s military, the Rohingyas have been fleeing the country since 2017.
Bangladesh has reported nearly 19,000 cases of the coronavirus and 283 deaths so far, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University.
Follow today’s live updates on the coronavirus pandemic here.
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