When you think about coronavirus protection you no doubt think of hospitals, or shops, or closed cafes. One place no one really thinks about is prison. Yet places or detention, particularly those at border crossings, are uppermost on IOM’s mind as the Organization assists governments in containing the pandemic.

This week IOM and partners from the UN and the Kingdom of the Netherlands handed over a huge batch of medical items and personal protection equipment (PPE) to the Moldovan Border Police and National Administration of Penitentiaries.

Almost half a million items were donated, including PPE,  thermal scanners, lamps for sterilizing the air inside waiting rooms, automatic dispensers, nebulizers, disinfectant mats and travel kits with information leaflets, oxygen concentrators, monitors, vaccine refrigerators, 500 rapid COVID tests, over six tons of disinfectant and two tons of liquid soap.

In total, the donation was worth over 150,000 euro.

Lars Johan Lönnback, chief of mission of IOM in Moldova praised the “enormous contribution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the improving of the border security and safe mobility in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The national coordinator of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Ina Tcaci, noted ” overcrowding in places of detention undermines hygiene, health, safety and human dignity. The assistance offered today ensures access to soap, disinfectants and PPE for all the country’s prisons and border crossings and makes them safer places.”

City of Dispatch: Chisinau