Secure borders make for increased public health security , but the current political climate makes difficult discussion of the issue so that smart decisions are made by lawmakers as well as public health experts .” resident applicants , including foreign students or migrant workers ), for various health conditions and illnesses . Immigration medical screening , quarantine , and isolation have been used in attempts to address the possible introduction of health threats by exclusion . Major immigration-receiving nations continue to use these processes to reduce the impact of health disparities in arriving mobile populations . Important as they are from a legal and administrative perspective , programs and policies that continue to embrace responses of inspection and exclusion will be increasingly costly and ineffective in the context of modern migration and population mobility . Furthermore , attempting to manage or mitigate health risks in arriving travelers , when many of the health risks may be latent or subclinical , without affecting international travel and commerce is operationally and logistically impractical .”
Do good borders make for good public health ? Some experts think so , for the benefit of all .
Dallas , et al . ( 2018 ) note that , “ In the U . S ., migration has been documented to affect the prevalence of infectious disease . As a mitigation entity , border security has been recorded by numerous scholarly works as being essential to the support of the health of the U . S . population . Consequently , the lack of current healthcare monitoring of the permeable U . S . border places the U . S . population at risk in the broad sectors of infectious disease and interpersonal violence . Visualizing border security in the context of public health mitigation has significant potential to protect migrant health as well as that of all populations on both sides of the border . Examples of how commonly this philosophy is held can be found in the expansive use of security-focused terms regarding public health . Using tools such as GIS to screen for disease in people before their entrance into a nation would be more efficient and ethical than treating patients once they have entered a population and increased the impact on the healthcare system .”
They add , “ Secure borders make for increased public health security , but the current political climate makes difficult discussion of the issue so that smart decisions are made by lawmakers as well as public health experts .”
As Dallas , et al . ( 2018 ) acknowledge , “ While much debate understandably surrounds the topic , one contemporary answer to the problem of foreign-sourced pathogens is border security . Often viewed as measures for counterterrorism and trade regulation in the United States , recent observations of infectious disease phenomena have encouraged the medical and security communities to seriously reconsider their roles and tactics regarding infectious disease and border security .”
The researchers point to several high-profile cases in which individuals with active , infectious TB crossed state and international borders repeatedly without forcible isolation or detainment and call for
“ a consideration of the impact of major outbreaks if cross-border disease transmission is not contained . This can be seen in the fact that drug-resistant TB has become an increasingly alarming issue along the U . S ./ Mexico border .”
They add , “ Considering that the prevalence of TB in many other nations is significantly higher than in the United States , proactive efforts to maintain an appropriate level of security to prevent the entrance of this disease , and to help the migrants thus identified and remove further infection on the other side of the border as well is logical and of mutual benefit to all . To expedite this process , policies on the local , state and national level must be able to coordinate and synchronize to ensure that authorities at each level , including medical , public health , and law enforcement ( groups that do not always coordinate easily ), are aware of the prevalence of diseases such as TB and measures to be taken accordingly . If border security and public health policy are weak or fail to efficiently cooperate , negative trends in public health such as a rise in drug-resistant TB can only be expected .”
An example of a timely and appropriate public health response related to border security is illustrated by the response to the SARs outbreak in 2003 . As Dallas , et al . ( 2018 ) remind us , “ In the United States , only 74 ‘ probable cases ’ of SARS were reported by the CDC , but no deaths occurred . The discrepancy between Canada ’ s incidence of disease and fatalities with the United States ’ is striking . In the United States , the battle against SARS focused on early detection and rapid implementation of infection control and isolation . The Bush Administration in the United States gave immigration and customs agents the authority in detain any arriving persons who even appeared to have symptoms of SARS . This resulted in the separation of possibly infected individuals from the healthy population much sooner than in Canada , where the disease had already been introduced into the population before quarantine and border controls were enforced . Studies suggest that heightened prevention procedures in the United States , utilizing immigration and customs agents along with healthcare workers , has significantly contributed to the lack of SARS transmission in the United States when compared with other nations .”
Ebola constituted a false alarm of sorts in 2014 , but also begs the question of how prepared are officials who are presiding over the intersection of public health and border security . The immigration of two individuals infected with the Ebola virus into the United States caused “ serious upheaval and societal disruption despite the fact that these individuals were both U . S . citizens and under strict quarantine ,” according to Dallas , et al . ( 2018 ).
The researchers add , “ One of the most crucial elements to preventing the outbreak of an infectious disease like Ebola is to isolate the infected individuals . The reasoning behind this is that isolation will break