The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, was first documented in China in December 2019, and the very first case in North Macedonia was registered at the end of February 2020. The COVID-19 response in our country and worldwide – given there was no vaccine and evidence that support specific strategies for a pharmaceutical treatment – mainly involved social distancing and maintaining respiratory hygiene in accordance with the World Health Organization’s guidelines.
It is expected that the COVID-19 pandemic will further increase the numerous health and social inequalities, the likes of which include unequal risks distribution in terms of acquiring and transmission of SARS-Co-2, difficult clinical condition in certain patients and reduced access to food, housing and healthcare. Key communities – including sex workers, men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and transgender people – are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Several factors that increase the HIV risk rate in key communities, also increase the risk of COVID-19 simultaneously. Those factors include mobility and close physical contacts with others by means of social or sexual contacts.
Furthermore, the lives of people f rom key populations are expected to become exponentially more difficult due to the restrictive measures in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The restriction on movement means buying food and supplies that would last for days, something which many people from the key populations cannot afford because of their unfavorable financial situation, and because many of them are heavily dependent on daily earnings. Maintaining access to food, shelter and other necessary supplies can be harder for members of key populations, given that they may have a rather limited support system, compared to the others in the general population.
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