| Cutting edge |  I received an email this week from someone who has been involved in the refugee camps that were set up to deal with the recent xenophobia crisis in South Africa. The camps are now closing, but that doesn't mean that the problem has gone away. As far as it is from our borders, the crisis in DRC has already started to send refugees to our door. This weekend a family arrived from DRC - going straight to the closed refugee camp at Blue Waters.
Millions of people are being displaced by the resurgent conflict in DRC - most of them flooding over the border to neighbouring Burundi - but - as this weekend shows - people will also head here. The person who sent the email thinks that the problem will become so intense that South Africa will need intervention from the UNHCR to set up full refugee camps here.
With the refugees come their health problems. Cholera and malnutrition are rife - the former being all the more worrying because it is a communicable disease. Because we do not have the correct procedures set up for dealing with refugees as they enter our country, health screening is not in place. This will have repercussions both on the refugees themselves and on our local population as the communicable diseases of disaster spread.
We need a humanitarian approach to these problems. Much of the rest of Africa is a disaster zone - neighbouring Zimbabwe is only the tip of the iceberg. We cannot live in isolation, hoping to shore up our defenses against all comers. We need a sensible and compassionate approach to the plight of refugees - one that helps the refugees and protects our own population.
Bridget Farham Editor
https://www.bizcommunity.com
| | Today's headlines
HIV/AIDSSouth Africa: Money delayed is ARVs deniedSouth Africa's newly sworn-in Health Minister, Barbara Hogan, came head-to-head with her first real crisis when antiretroviral (ARV) treatment was withheld from hundreds of people in Free State Province. Some may give her an "A" for effort, but others say the health department's response is way off mark. Disability blindness Indaba tackles HIV and AIDS head-on - Magna CartaPeople with disabilities are also affected by HIV and AIDS.
Mental healthPatients at risk of self-harm after discharge from psychiatric careNon-fatal self-harm may occur in over 10% of adults discharged from psychiatric inpatient care in England and Wales, according to new research from the University of Bristol published in the BMJ. The risk was found to be greatest in the first month, Professor David Gunnell and colleagues found.
NutritionCompany aligns guidelines with ASA's latest thinking on marketing to childrenWidespread recognition of the impressionability of children up to the age of 12 years has led to recent changes to the Advertising Standards Authority's code on food and beverage advertising to children.
Public healthSenegal: Albinos face social rejectionWhile albinos in West Africa are not facing the violent attacks seen in recent weeks in other parts of the continent, people with albinism in countries like Senegal face grave and even life-threatening discrimination. DRC: Healthcare crisis as cholera, malnutrition riseMany of the displaced in the eastern province of North Kivu urgently need healthcare amid an increase in the number of cholera, gunshot injury and malnutrition cases being reported, according to aid agencies. New index ranks African countries on child welfareA league table of African governments' child friendliness was launched in Nairobi to mark the universal day of the child on 20 November. |
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