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UMass Chan Medical School students are working to support community efforts to assist Afghan refugees in Worcester. Last month, six T.H. Chan School of Medicine students stepped in to test 200 Afghans at a Worcester hotel after volunteers from the Worcester Refugee Assistance Project (WRAP) learned one of the residents had COVID-19 symptoms.

“They’re in a living situation where it’s so hard to social distance if anyone becomes COVID positive,” said second-year medical student Emma Dudley. “They’re living in a hotel, so it’s really difficult to control spread.”

Hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan came to Worcester in August 2021. Several local organizations, including the United Way of Central Massachusetts, teamed up to help them get settled. Some refugees are temporarily living in Worcester hotels and finding permanent housing has been difficult, according to Timothy Garvin, president and chief executive officer of the United Way of Central Massachusetts.

“The average size of an Afghan family is about eight. In most western apartments, landlords won't rent to a family of eight,” Garvin said.

Meme Tran, MD’19, emergency medicine chief resident in the Department of Emergency Medicine, reached out to medical students and fellow WRAP volunteers Omar Taweh and Nathan Yingling to see if they had COVID tests after she discovered that one of the Afghan refugees was experiencing symptoms.

“I had one and gave it to her and it came back positive,” Yingling said. “So, we knew at that moment, PCR tests or not, there’s COVID at that hotel.”

Working quickly, Olga Valdman, MD’09, assistant professor of family medicine & community health, obtained more than 600 antigen tests from the National Guard. Nearly 200 tests were given to the Afghans by the medical students and only a few were positive.

“We were all incredibly relieved to find that there weren’t that many positive cases,” Taweh said.

“I would say because of the quick response and because of the multi-tentacles into the community, the students from UMass Chan Medical School were able to prevent an outbreak,” Garvin said. “And that's really good.”

Dr. Tran said the students will continue to help triage and record medical concerns so that Dr. Valdman can schedule appointments for them in the health clinics going forward. 

“The hope is that the students will also help the refugees navigate the health care system here so that they can learn how to access medical care here,” Tran said.

First-year medical student Aastha Pokharel volunteered for the project along with second-year students Weaam Arman, Muhammet Ozdemir, Dudley, Taweh and Yingling.