Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Editorials

Europe’s refugee crisis: an urgent call for moral leadership

BMJ 2015; 351 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h4833 (Published 09 September 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;351:h4833

Rapid Response:

Re: Europe’s refugee crisis

The authors call for moral leadership. The WHO says there are no health risks to the host populations from viral infections.

Conspicuous by its absence is any evidence that the incomers' physical and psychological health is being monitored from the moment of arrival in the Balkans, through their journey to their final destination.

In previous posts (eg Rapid Responses by Dr Stavros Sarapinidis and myself ) some of us have pointed out the need for such MEDICAL care.

Howsoever welcoming the host population might be, some infestations and infections, howsoever minor they might be, have the potential, notably in schools, of creating alarm bordering on hysteria as well as antagonism towards ALL migrants and those who "look like" migrants.

The physical and emotional experiences may lead the migrants, even when in safe havens, to act in an unsocial manner. Recent news items from Hungary and from the German-Dutch border are illustrative.

It would be prudent and in the interests of the UK, the EC and even the WHO to organise a medical screening service starting from the Balkans. Surely there are plenty of plenty of public health doctors interested in hands-on work as opposed to statistical work at a distance?

The senior author (Dr Abbasi) may well have some first hand knowledge of displaced persons, not singly but in large numbers.

My suggestions are based on public health experiences in the London Borough of Redbridge, during the Ugandan inflow over forty years ago.

Competing interests: No competing interests

14 September 2015
JK Anand
Retired doctor
Free spirit
Peterborough