The ongoing civil war in Syria has caused increasing death tolls but another issue emerges--public health crisis.
The health care system of the region is soon to collapse based on the conclusion of a study published in the British medical journal The Lancet. Infections and contagious diseases are increasing within the area and it soon to reach even the refugees outside the border.
Dr. Abdul Kader Abbas, a medical doctor in a clinic along the poor neighborhood of Beirut, told in an interview with 89.1 Wichita Public Radio that when the refugees moved in their area, he started curing more people—both refugees and local residents. 758 families were already infected and there will be more as refugees continue to move in.
"With the additional numbers," Abbas says, "we are afraid that any disease could spread easily in such circumstances." That's the same warning spelled out in the latest Lancet report.
Meanwhile, the medical doctors based in Syria had long abandoned the place which made the disease grew even more since nobody was left to help the patients. Public health researchers Dr. Adam Coutts and Dr. Fouad Fouad stated in their report that the increase of the infectious diseases was over-the-top.
They pointed out scenarios to support their conclusion. One of it is that 7,000 cases of measles were recorded since the start of the civil war and there were other cases of other diseases too such as cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid, and boils. There was a vaccination program rolled out before but not everybody was vaccinated because of the war. In fact, there were people who had not received medical care for over two years.
The refugee population is expected to reach over 3 million by the end of this year. More people were dying not because of war but these diseases. Jordan, who had accepted the Syrian refugees, reported that their patient load had leaped by 250 percent and that there were more refugees than the locals.
Another issue that the officials are anticipating is the back-to-school season in fall. There will be more refugees attending the class than the Lebanese. If these Syrian kids were infected, the Lebanese kids are at high risk.
The U.S government is also one of the countries who had been helping these Syrian refugees. In fact, the government had pledged $300 million for the refugees’ food, shelter, and health care.
