COVID-19 pandemic in shelters for asylum seekers: a scoping review of preventive measures

To investigate which measures are recommended by guidelines on prevention and management of infectious disease outbreaks in refugee shelters, how outbreaks have been dealt with in these facilities in the past and how measures taken compare with the recommendations identified in the literature.

The review comprised German and English language literature on refugees residing in shelters located in high-income countries, published between 1990 and 2021. We searched PubMed, CINAHL and Web of Science.

We extracted information concerning the characteristics of the setting and the study population, measures for outbreak prevention and reported difficulties with implementing these measures. The findings were evaluated using descriptive statistics and were narratively summarised.

Of a total of 1162 publications, 36 were included in the review, of which 19 were original research articles and 17 were guidelines/commentaries. In the guidelines, 37 different measures of infection control were mentioned. Among those, social distancing and isolation or quarantine were mentioned most frequently. In the outbreak reports, 27 different measures were reported, of which testing was reported most often. Different reasons why recommendations are difficult to implement in shelters were described, which are related to space, equipment, staff and financial constraints. Discrepancies between recommendations and actual practice mostly relate to the lack of preparation for outbreaks and the lack of appropriate measures to ensure intersectoral cooperation.

Recommendations on infection control and outbreak management and the measures actually taken in refugee shelters differ considerably. Among others, this results from a lack of intersectoral cooperation between state ministries, municipal health offices and the administration of the facilities as well as from guidelines not sufficiently tailored to the characteristics of refugee shelters.