StemCell Therapy

Asylum seekers at Mexico - USA border crossing (Photo: Al-Jazeera)

The U.S. government hasadvisedAmericans to wash their hands obsessively, avoid close contact with others and stay home as much as possible to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novelcoronavirus, which has infected more than1,000 peoplein the country. Butthousands of migrants seeking asylum in the United States cant follow these instructions since the Trump administration has forced them to wait for their court dates in overcrowded and unsanitary camps and shelters near the border.

Without the governments help, volunteer doctors in Mexican border towns told HuffPost they are scrambling to take preventative measures to stave off a coronavirus outbreak. But if the disease enters these congested environments, it could spread like wildfire and lead to deaths, said Helen Perry, the executive director of the nonprofit Global Response Management who has been coordinating medical efforts in Matamoros.

The potential for a devastating outbreak in those circumstances is really great, saidDr. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University, adding that these migrants face a perfect storm of factors. Theyre marginalized, they have no access to care and theyre so vulnerable. People can absolutely die.

Since January 2019, the Trump administration has turned back almost 60,000 asylum-seekers under a program known as Remain in Mexico. On Wednesday, the Supreme Courtoverrodea lower courts decision to block the program, which hasforcedtens of thousands of people to live for months in dangerous Mexican border towns where crime is rife and medical resources are scarce.

The shelters and tent camps in border cities such as Matamoros, Tijuana and Ciudad Jurez are playgrounds for viral illnesses like COVID-19. In Matamoros, roughly2,000 peoplelive in tents packed together along the Rio Grande. They are constantly in groups, eating together and waiting to use portable showers and toilets. Their only access to water is from big containers brought in by volunteers.

You cant just tell someone, Hey, just dont come out of your tent for a couple days, Perry said. The thought that theres going to be any kind of quarantine is pretty limited.

Theyre marginalized, they have no access to care and theyre so vulnerable. People can absolutely die.Dr. Ranit Mishori, professor of family medicine at Georgetown University

There are currently onlysevenknown cases of the coronavirus in Mexico, and the biggest threat of infection comes from American volunteers, physicians told HuffPost.

But as more doctors and nurses cancel their trips across the border to aid the asylum-seekers, immigrants are being cut off from their only access to health care. Dr. Hannah Janeway, who helps run the Refugee Health Alliance, said so many volunteers have canceled trips to Tijuana that there are three weeks between March and April when the Refugee Health Alliance wont have enough U.S. doctors and nurses to staff the medical clinic.

Click here to read full article by Angelina Chapin, reporter for the HuffPost

comments

Read this article:
A coronavirus outbreak along the US-Mexico border could be devastating (Opinion) - The Yucatan Times

This entry was posted on March 12, 2020 at 8:51 am and is filed under Preventative Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |