JNMC faculty member speaks on ‘Status of Migrants’ in virtual conference

Aligarh: “India’s interstate migrants provide critical labour that sustains the economy, but they themselves remain on the margins. In the already precarious existence, the lockdown prompted by the Covid19 pandemic resulted in their loss of livelihood and exodus, the like of which was not witnessed by this generation,” emphasised Dr Saira Mehnaz, Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, JN Medical College (JNMC), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

She was delivering the online plenary lecture on ‘Status of Migrants in Covid Times: An Indian Perspective’ in the International Virtual Conference on Public Health 2020 (IVCPH 2020). Her lecture was attended by delegates connected virtually from more than 10 countries. ‘Improving the Quality of Life’ was the theme of the conference.

She further pointed out ‘how out of pocket’ expenditure has put people in great difficulty during the global health emergency following the coronavirus outbreak.

Dr Saira spoke on the pandemic situation in India in light of the preparedness aspect of the urban slum population comprising migrants. She chalked out measures for management the migrant crisis in her presentation.

“There is a huge uncertainty about how long the pandemic will last and how it will further damage the economy, livelihood of people and availability of basic healthcare services. Given its size and spread, management of migrants under lockdown represents a massive logistic challenge which should be dealt accordingly,” said Dr Saira.

Based on the presentation in the conference, Dr Saira has been granted a scholarship for another online lecture at the 3rd Bandung International Conference on ‘Collaborative Health Research’ scheduled to be held between September 14 and 15.