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Unhealthy refugees? The fairytale of the migrants as a plague charm
Biological distrust
A caution that strangers transmit diseases is biologically based. For since our time as a hunter-gatherer, pathogens that rage in a group spread in contact with other groups. Trapped epidemics can destroy entire peoples: The American Natives had no immune defense against viruses and bacteria of Europeans and their animals. They died of millions of smallpox, measles or the flu.
Migrants are on average healthier than the majority population in rich countries despite their poor social situation. One reason: Only those with strong defenses survive the rigors of the journey. (Image: oneinchpunch / fotolia.com) Racist baiting
Racists build on this real danger in order to rush against the minorities who want to marginalize, reject or destroy them. Thus, the Nazis deliberately equated Jews with animals that transmit diseases, such as rats. Or they even compared them to the pathogens themselves, such as viruses or bacteria. With this association of Jews and deadly microbes, they prepared the Holocaust.
Widespread myth
Today, except for neo-Nazis, the idea of migrants producing migrants does not take on this murderous form, but prejudice and stereotypes are still mainstream: immigrants are a burden on health care, in poor physical condition and many germs. These prejudices are even rampant among nurses, doctors and doctors.
Healthy survivors
The trade magazine "Lancet" has now clarified these ideas as wrong. The published studies "The health of a world on the move" analyze the health situation of migrants worldwide on 200 pages. Conclusion: migrants have no bad, but usually a very good health. Only then could they survive the strain of migration and flight.
More than a billion on the run
More than a billion people are on the run worldwide, three out of four within their home countries. Only 258 million are leaving their home countries, most of them fleeing to neighboring countries - from Afghanistan to Iran or from Syria to Lebanon. In 2017, only 3.4 percent were international migrants.
Burden on the health system?
In right-wing populist propaganda, migrants are seen as a burden on national health systems. Health care without migrants would hardly work in many European countries as well as in the USA. Disproportionately many immigrants from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa work in health and elderly care as well as physicians. More than a third of doctors in the UK studied in another country.
Rarer sick
An analysis of 15 million people from 92 countries shows that mortality among migrants in the rich countries is below that of their ancestral citizens. Migrants suffer less from cardiovascular disease and cancer and have fewer problems with digestive, respiratory and nervous system diseases. Many chronic "civilization diseases" are rare among migrants from poorer countries, because they moved more in their places of origin and eat healthier than the average American or "normal" German.
Paradox healthy
The above-average health of migrants stands out even more, because the newcomers in the affluent countries are on average in a worse social situation than the natives. And low social status is usually associated with an increased risk of contracting. The "healthy migrant effect" even compensates for hard physical work, unemployment and targeted discrimination.
Risk only with a few diseases
Only with very few diseases do migrants have a higher risk of becoming infected. These are hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV. If they come from countries where tuberculosis occurs, they can bring it with them. However, these are diseases in which other migrants in particular are at risk of becoming infected, not the general population. In addition, these diseases are good to treat.
Deadly epidemics?
Long-distance travelers know the fear of becoming infected with deadly tropical diseases like Ebola. However, the risk of migrants infiltrating such killer diseases is more than unlikely. Sick people are barely able to travel, and if they did, they would not survive. Tourists or infected animals are at much greater risk of transporting them from continent to continent in such lethal infections.
teething problems
Refugees in particular suffer from problems that set in places where people live concentrated, very quickly - in refugee home no different than in the army barracks. These include scabies or diarrhea. These are easy to treat and disappear quickly.
Illness carrier or nurse?
The danger that AfD supporters and racists suggest that refugees massively spread pathogens, so there is hardly any. Instead, migrant haters need to be prepared to treat a doctor from Syria in the hospital and give them a nurse from Afghanistan a dignified retirement. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)