The population of immigrant origin is not exempt from the dangers of the coronavirus (koronavirus, in Finnish). The health authorities of the Helsinki region have just announced that infections have been detected among the foreign population in the metropolitan area.

The announcement was made by Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District (HUS) in a press release.However, the health authority refuses to say how many cases there are.

"Coronavirus infections have been reported in the HUS area in people with an immigrant background. Accurate infection rates are not available because HUS does not produce statistics on patients based on ethnic background, but among those infected there are also immigrants," HUS said on Monday.

Pia Aarnisalo, HUS Administrative Director, said that they have been in contact with immigrant communities in an attempt to raise awareness about the incidence of this virus, which in Finland is especially widespread in the capital area, where so far 1,362 cases have been diagnosed.

Improve information

In the Helsinki-Uusimaa region, the incidence of cases is also the highest across the country: 80.8 infections per 100,000 inhabitants. For the country as a whole, the incidence is less than half that of Uusimaa, just 39 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

With these figures on the table, the Helsinki-Uusimaa health authorities insist on the need to raise awareness among people of foreign origin: "We are highlighting this to improve the information flow,", Aarnisalo emphasized.

HUS notes that, as happened in Sweden -where many immigrants became ill, especially in Stockholm-, Finland has also raised concerns about migrant infections.

For those reasons, HUS has released six videos about coronavirus in English, Arabic, Russian, Somali, Swedish and Finnish. In them, Dr. Asko Järvinen, an expert in infectious diseases, explains how the coronavirus is spread and what must be done to protect from the disease.

You can watch below the version with subtitles in the language which is best for you. The video in Somali also includes simultaneous translation into Somali language.

English

Arabic

Russian

Somali

Swedish

Finnish

*All videos produced by Helsinki-Uusimaa Hospital District (HUS).