China Daily, Aug. 29 -- The influx of migrants from the U.S. border will not only create a migration crisis, but also public health.
The authors believe that asylum seekers bring infectious diseases. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has warned that shelter is in short supply, leaving asylum seekers to wander the streets against the summer heat.
The author has come into contact with migrants and learned that migrants live without toilets and proper hydration, and are constantly at risk of dehydration and dysentery.
The latest research shows that more than 4% of migrants from Central and South America to Europe have Chagas disease. The condition is contagious and can lead to quite serious complications, including heart failure. In addition, tuberculosis is on the rise in the United States, as is syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. Although the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that immigrant applicants with infectious diseases are not allowed to enter the United States, it is difficult to deter immigrants who have not undergone routine screening before entry, such as undocumented immigrants.
Neha Jaggi Sood, a spokesman for the CDC's Global Immigration and Quarantine Unit, said they do not "track diseases based on immigration status." And "under-negative" occurs from time to time.
James Hodges, a Texas physician, believes "open borders" are leading to more drug-resistant TB in the United States. Mark Lamb, Sheriff of Pinar County in southern Arizona, noted that the Border Patrol and local agencies have detected various types of (contagious) diseases, such as tuberculosis, scabies, hepatitis A and B, gonorrhea, syphilis, mumps, chickenpox, dengue... He believes that migrants bring these health hazards. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said anxiously that not all undocumented immigrants are screened for measles before entering the country.
The authors argue that health risks expand wherever immigrants are sent, including in New York City. The "porous" border is not only a national security crisis, but also a public health emergency.
According to the US "Capitol Hill" reported on the 28th, New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vassan has spoken out that the US government's border policy has led to a large influx of immigrants from the southern border and brought infectious diseases to communities in New York City.
In the past, immigrants to the United States came mainly from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, but now the increase in immigration from other countries has increased the uncontrollability of infectious diseases. The U.S. Border Patrol consolidated statistics for "other countries" into one category.
In fiscal year 2011, the Border Patrol encountered fewer than 8,000 immigrants from the "other countries" category (about 3 percent of the total number of immigrants). By fiscal year 2022, they met nearly 1 million immigrants (43%) from the "other countries" category. In the first six months of fiscal year 2023, 550,000 (53%) immigrants came from this category.
According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chickenpox, which was not common in the United States, has recently broken out in immigrant shelters. The CDC says chickenpox is highly contagious. A patient can infect nearly 90% of his close contacts. And once chickenpox outbreaks occur, they can be extremely serious and even life-threatening. Vasan said the migrants brought with them polio, which can permanently paralyze people. Meanwhile, poliovirus matched to the poliovirus caused by oral vaccines (injectable polio vaccines are used in the United States, and live-lived polioviruses are used in poorer countries) were found in sewage in New York.
Measles, malaria, Hansen's disease and a range of other conditions that are not common in the United States have reappeared, and the report said that the migration crisis was "to blame". In conclusion, the report stressed that this is a serious problem that the US government should solve as soon as possible.
Source: China Daily