Mass Migration Risks Major Public Health Crisis
8/22/2017, 7:44:24 AM · by SJackson · 2 replies
Frontpagemagazine ^ | August 22, 2017 | Joseph Klein
Pope Francis said on Monday that migrants’ dignity and right to protection are of higher priority than national security concerns. He said that we should “always prioritize personal safety over national security.” The pope fails to realize that both personal safety and national security are threatened by the flood of uncontrolled mass migration. Some of the migrants, including would-be asylum seekers, willfully import violent Islamic jihadism into their host countries, killing innocent civilians. Others from countries with primitive sanitation facilities and substandard medical care are carrying deadly diseases.
As the Islamic terrorist attack in Barcelona demonstrated yet again, jihadists who have migrated from Muslim majority countries are continuing to wreak havoc in their adopted Western host countries. However, the silent killers that unchecked migration may spread across borders are infectious diseases that were thought to be largely eradicated in the West.
According to a report prepared by the Federation of Immigration Reform, “Communicable diseases do not stop at international borders. They could be one of the most dangerous – yet rarely considered – consequence of inadequate immigration controls.” The report added that “researchers have concluded that the international movement of people is a significant factor in disease outbreaks.” Germany is a case in point.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that 2015 was the year of the largest migration of people in human history. Germany admitted over a million self-proclaimed refugees and other migrants in 2015. Many of them came from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa.
An article appearing in the Journal of Health Monitoring, published by Germany’s public health institute, known as the Robert Koch Institute, noted the severe strain that this mass migration into Germany has placed on Germany’s health system:
“The wars and devastation of recent years have driven many people to flee their homes. Great numbers of asylum seekers and refugees have sought protection in Europe. In 2015 and 2016 alone, over one million people applied for asylum in Germany. This has posed a great challenge for Germany’s healthcare provision facilities.”
The health journal article noted the insufficient representative data on the health and healthcare of asylum seekers and refugees in Germany or their impact amongst the general public. However, the article acknowledged that the prevalence of “particular communicable diseases is higher among asylum seekers than among the resident population.” The number of reported cases of Hepatitis B, for example, increased nearly fourfold between 2014 and 2016. Many of the infected individuals were unvaccinated migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
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