INTRODUCTION COVID‑19 has swept across the world, with over 50 million confirmed cases and over 1.4 million deaths reported to WHO at the time of writing (1). In the face of this pandemic, all are vulnerable, including refugees and migrants. “The virus has shown that it does not discriminate – but many refugees and migrants are at heightened risk” (4). Today, every seventh person worldwide is estimated to be a migrant, with 272 million being international migrants (5) and 763 million internal migrants (6). Also, among them, by mid 2020, 80 million people were forcibly displaced be‑ cause of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights viola‑ tions or events seriously disturbing public order (7). While refugees and migrants are resilient like rest of the humankind, they may often remain in difficult situation be‑ cause of factors such as their migratory status, inadequate access to services including health and other entitlements and discrimination that they might face across the migra‑ tion cycle. Refugees and migrants enjoy the same human rights and the right to health as any other person in society, yet much evidence suggests that they may face difficulties in realiz‑ ing such rights and have limited tools to protect them‑ selves. The reasons may depend on poor living conditions, marginalization with respect to the reach of public health measures, limited access to health care, lack of financial pro‑ tection and informal or precarious labour settings. They may DEFINITIONS OF REFUGEE AND MIGRANT Refugee Migrant Definitions in this document The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol (2) defines a refu‑ gee as “any person who … owing to well-founded fear of being per‑ secuted for reasons of race, reli‑ gion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual res‑ idence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.” The World Health Assembly Resolu‑ tion A72/25 Rev.1 (Promoting the health of refugees and migrants: draft global action plan, 2019– 2023) uses this definition (3). Resolution A72/25 Rev.1 also states that “There is no universally ac‑ cepted definition of the term “mi‑ grant”. Migrants may be granted a different legal status in the country of their stay, which may have dif‑ ferent interpretations regarding entitlement and access to essen‑ tial health care services within a given national legislation, yet un‑ der international law such access remains universal for all in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular with Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages)” (3). Migrants may remain in the home country or host country (settlers), move on to another country (transit migrants), or move back and forth between countries (circular mi‑ grants, such as seasonal workers). While in some contexts such defini‑ tions may have important implica‑ tions for entitlement of and access to health services, the definitions as applied in this document do not denote any particular legal status or entitlement. The entitlement of and access to health services for the various groups are determined by national regulations and legis‑ lation. In this document, the term migrant is used as an overarching category; the terms refugee and asylum seeker are included and ap‑ plied in accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention and as rec‑ ommended by the International Organization for Migration and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Introduction | 1