What are the migratory diseases that are present in Latin America?
These diseases are seen as challenges that demand new paradigms for global disease control in governance, surveillance, and response.
Dengue, measles, diphtheria, leprosy, Chagas, and tuberculosis are the six migratory diseases that, even in 2019, continue to affect Latin America. Many of these are propagated by the migration of citizens who leave their homes, either of their own free will or out of necessity.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), migratory diseases among travelers, immigrants, and refugees are considered a problem that causes human suffering and burdens society.
Over the past century, the speed and volume of international travel and migration have reached unprecedented levels, bringing the impact of globalization to all sectors of society: economic, environmental, political, socio-cultural, and health.
Today, given that cyclical pandemics such as influenza cross the world faster than ever before, it is imperative to have prevention plans against emerging infectious diseases in the 21st century.
What are the migratory diseases of Latin America?
Most migrants are healthy young adults (21-24 years), but often bear a disproportionate burden of migration-associated infectious diseases such as common infections or communicable infections such as rubella, measles, HIV or tuberculosis, and even tropical infections.
Diseases such as dengue, measles, and diphtheria continue to occur in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico, with figures that should not be overlooked. Just a month ago, measles had reported to the World Health Organization about 3,000 cases of the disease in the Americas alone. Dengue, on the other hand, in Brazil alone has more than one million reported cases with lethality of 0.04%.
What are the numbers like?
- Leprosy continues to be registered in 24 countries around the world.
- Tuberculosis, on the other hand, registers 282,000 new cases with an incidence rate of 28/100,000 inhabitants, being highest in the Caribbean with 61.2/100,000 inhabitants, South America with 46.2%, Central America and Mexico with 25.9%, and North America with 3.3%.
- Finally, Chagas disease causes the death of an average of 14,000 people per year and occurs in 21 countries, with an average of 30,000 new cases per year and 70 million people at risk of contracting it.
These diseases are seen as challenges that demand new paradigms for global disease control in governance, surveillance, and response.
