Many governments are failing to provide adequate protection for health workers on the frontline of the fight to curb the coronavirus pandemic, Amnesty International said on Monday.
A lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care staff was found in almost all of the 63 countries and regions surveyed for Amnesty's report "Exposed, silenced, attacked."
The group said it had collated reports of some 3,000 deaths of health workers in 79 countries, adding that the true death toll is likely to be far higher.
It underlined other concerns including low pay, long hours and punishment of people who speak out against poor working conditions in some countries.
Amnesty said its report "highlights the grave concerns health and essential workers experience today, and the many ways in which governments are failing to adequately protect the full range of their human rights."
It said Russia and Britain had reported the highest numbers of deaths linked to Covid-19 infections among health workers, with at least 545 deaths in Russia and 540 in Britain.
Black and other minorities
Amnesty's analysis confirmed that some groups of health, care and sanitation workers were disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
It cited examples of workers from black and other ethnic minorities in Britain, from India's dalit community and from Finland's Somali-speaking community.
In countries including Russia and China, health workers faced reprisals for "speaking out about their working conditions or for criticizing the authorities’ response," Amnesty said.
