STAT: What the U.S. can learn from Rwandan refugee camps: treat public health seriously

Laszlo Madaras, chief medical officer of the Migrant Clinicians Network, a family physician in Pennsylvania, and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Penn State College of Medicine

 

“…If the Trump administration is formally changing how long children and families seeking asylum will stay in detention facilities, then it needs to urgently, immediately, and transparently revise its medical protocol for those forced to live in these facilities to protect public health and provide basic humanitarian aid, just as was done in refugee camps decades ago and thousands of miles away [in Rwanda]. … I am not suggesting that detention is an appropriate place for children. It isn’t. … If long-term detention is combined with lack of vaccinations for communicable diseases in such already overcrowded facilities, even more infection, sickness, and death will follow…” (9/10).