Disability activists and rights group in Serbia are asking government to make public the data on COVID-19 infections and deaths inside institutions for people with disabilities in a bid to create transparency around the impact of COVID-19 on people with disabilities.
The demand was put across by six organizations for people with disabilities and human rights groups in a letter to Prime Minister Ana Brnabić. Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on people in institutions is impossible without transparent and complete data, the groups said.
The authorities published data indicating that on April 30, 2020, 574 people living in residential care institutions, including those for people with disabilities, were infected. On July 29, the authorities reported that 180 people in such institutions were infected.
“It is not known how many people with disabilities living in institutions across Serbia have died or been infected with Covid-19,” Milan Šveřepa, director of Inclusion Europe, was quoted as saying in news. “For example, we don’t know how many of the 574 people identified as infected on April 30 may have died. This is deeply worrisome.”
The groups sending the letter are Inclusion Europe, the European Network on Independent Living, Validity Foundation, Disability Rights International, Mental Disability Rights Initiative Serbia (MDRI-S), and Human Rights Watch.
Since April, Human Rights Watch and MDRI-S have sent private letters to the government requesting information on, among other issues, what steps the government has taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in residential institutions for both children and adults with disabilities, and on the total number of infections and deaths. The government has not provided the information sought.
“An important part of addressing the COVID-19 pandemic is understanding the scale and circumstances of infections and deaths,” said Emina Ćerimović, senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Collecting this data is necessary to inform government policy, decision-making, and response. Publishing this data helps the wider public understand the impact of the outbreak on social care institutions.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided further evidence of the many risks that institutional life poses. Evidence from around the world shows that Covid-19 spreads rapidly and people living in close proximity to others in closed settings are at particularly high risk of infection.
