--- title: "Report: COVID Has Spread to the World’s Largest Refugee Camp" description: "Two Rohingya refugees in the world's largest refugee camp in Bangladesh have tested positive for the coronavirus, the BBC reports." date: "2020-05-15" modified: "2020-05-15" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/covid-spread-refugee-camp" categories: - "Developments" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "refugees" --- # Report: COVID Has Spread to the World’s Largest Refugee Camp ![Two Rohingya refugees in the world's largest refugee camp in Bangladesh have tested positive for the coronavirus, the BBC reports.]() *\Image: DFID\* Two residents of the world's largest refugee camp in Bangladesh have tested positive for the coronavirus, the [*BBC* reports](). While they have been treated in isolation, a further 1,900 refugees are being tested — indicating fear that the pandemic could sweep through one of the world's most vulnerable populations. The two Rohingya refugees who tested positive were living in a camp with a population of about one million in Cox's Bazar, a town in southern Bangladesh. The camp has been under lockdown due to the pandemic since March 14. "Now that the virus has entered the world's largest refugee settlement in Cox's Bazar we are looking at the very real prospect that thousands of people may die from Covid-19," Shamim Jahan, Save the Children's health director in Bangladesh, said in [a statement](). "This pandemic could set Bangladesh back by decades." Resources are already extremely scarce, compounding the peril. "There are only an estimated 2,000 ventilators in all of Bangladesh, serving a population of 160 million people," Jahan added. "In the Rohingya refugee camps — home to nearly a million people — there are no intensive care beds at this moment." It's a grim new chapter in the coronavirus pandemic. The Rohingya peoiple are an ethnic group that mainly live in northern Myanmar, but have become one of the [world's most persecuted minorities](), with many fleeing to Bangladesh over the past several years. Experts say a coronavirus outbreak in a refugee camp is a worst-case scenario. "Any kind of epidemic is never good, but particularly not this one, where physical distancing is impossible and home isolation is a joke," Annick Antierens, a strategic adviser to the medical department for Doctors without Borders [told *Nature*]() last month. ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()