Monday, July 7, 2014

A Public Health Crisis at the Border

Diseases that are endemic to other countries are not always the same ones that we face in the United States. This is a medical observation, not a political one, and it is the reason immigrants who enter this country legally face rigorous screenings in advance of entry for sexually transmitted diseases, active tuberculosis, new strains of influenza, leprosy, cholera, and plague.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require that all legal immigrants receive a medical exam. Proof of vaccination is also mandatory for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, haemophilus strains, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcus, chicken pox, pneumonia, and seasonal flu.
None of these rigorous screenings can be done in advance of entry on people who enter this country illegally and undetected. And once people are detained, the screenings they receive are not nearly as rigorous or effective at controlling the spread of disease. This is the reason that we have a potential public health crisis along our southern border.
As many as 50,000 children, mostly from Central American countries, are now being housed in cramped makeshift detention centers by the U.S. government. Unfortunately, they are not being detained for the purpose of identifying illness, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement relying on self-report of symptoms, and many have already been sent to other states, where disease can spread.
[...]
A senior spokesman for CDC told me that HHS is taking the lead in providing medical services for these centers in southwest Texas and Arizona. When a case of H1N1 swine flu was diagnosed in late June, 2,000 flu vaccines were flown in. Since it takes two to three weeks for a vaccine to confer protection, more cases of flu are likely within the centers. It is also possible that the disease will spread to the local community and beyond.
Drug-resistant tuberculosis also appears to have spread, with several counties in southern Texas reporting twice the usual average number of cases. TB is a disease that needs to be carefully monitored and screened for, a prospect that is not possible under the current circumstances.
Read Dr. Marc Siegel's full op-ed HERE and view a related video below:



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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

BO is too busy campaigning and Valerie and Michelle cannot tell him what to do while he is on the road. I am sure he will get a round of golf.