Return of Diphtheria

The BBC reports that there had been an outbreak of diphtheria among the Rohingye refugees in local refugee camps.

Reuters report adds: first there was cholera, now Diphtheria.

Unclean water, crowded shelters and dirty conditions create a perfect environment at the Balukhali refugee camp for spread of preventable diseases. The camp is in Cox’s Bazaar, a town in southeastern Bangladesh. It is home to some of the estimated 650,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled unrest in neighboring Myanmar.

More than 200 mobile vaccination teams have given about 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccine to the refugees.

However, another contagious bacterial infection, diphtheria, has appeared.

the full report from the UN is here:

UN estimates show that some 655,000 people have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh since August 2017. Diphtheria is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium which primarily infects the throat and upper airways, and produces a toxin affecting other organs. The diphtheria toxin causes a membrane of dead tissue to build up over the throat and tonsils, making breathing and swallowing difficult. The disease is spread through direct physical contact or from breathing in the aerosolized secretions from coughs or sneezes of infected individuals. Between 8 November 2017 and 11 January 2018, as many as 31 deaths and 3,954 suspected cases of diphtheria have been reported from Cox's Bazar. Nearly 10,594 contacts of these suspected cases have been put on diphtheria preventive medication.

they are also giving shots to the kids in the nearby villages.

To limit the spread of diphtheria to communities living near the Rohingya camps and settlements, nearly 160,000 children in 499 schools of Teknaf and Ukhiya sub-districts are also being vaccinated.

National Geographic article here.


this is ethnic cleansing of a group that moved to Burma a hundred years ago but never assimilated and were never considered full citizens. They are Muslim whereas most Burmans are Buddhists.

They have been treated poorly by the locals, to say the least, but this last crisis, which is true ethnic cleansing, was precipitated by some of the earlier refugees becoming terrorists, causing a backlash against the entire population.

Sigh.

Wikipedia article on the Rohingye.

this article suggests the vaccination rate for DPT has actually decreased over the last 7 years from 90 percent to 75 percent coverage.

this article discusses the logistical and social problems of vaccinating the children of Burmese refugees in the Tak area of Thailand, but does not mention the ethnicity of these refugees.

But the Wikipedia article on Tak Province mentions they are Karen refugees.

According to the UNHCR data of 2008, nearly 95,000 of Thailand's 121,000 registered refugees from Burma are housed in several refugee camps in Tak province of which Mae La camp is the largest with around 45,000 Karen refugees.^[14]

the Wikipedia article on the Karen people.

 The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population with approximately 5 million people.^[6] A large number of Karen have migrated to Thailand, having settled mostly on the Thailand–Myanmar border....

Around 400,000 Karen people are without housing, and 128,000 are living in camps on the Thailand-Burma border. According to BMC, "79% of refugees living in these camps are Karen ethnicity."^[31] Their lives are restricted in the camps because they usually cannot go out, and the Thai police might arrest them if they do

more information on the tribal refugees here.

Fox news article on the resettlement of these refugees in Iowa.

Burma is made up of hundreds of distinct ethnic groups, with one, the primarily Buddhist Bamar, dominating Burmese society and politics. The largest Burmese ethnic groups in the U.S. include the Chin, who live in the west and are persecuted for their Christian beliefs, and the Karen, who are fighting against ethnic cleansing and Burmese military abuses, according to the Ethnic Minorities of Burma Advocacy and Resource Center (EMBARC)  in Des Moines.