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  • 2015-12-22 (xsd:date)
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  • Are Refugees Spreading Disease in the U.S.? (en)
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  • On 20 December 2015, the web site Breitbart published an article titled EXCLUSIVE - Syrian Refugees Bringing Flesh-Eating Disease into U.S.?, which held: On 21 December 2015, the web site Patriot Crier built upon the claim with an article titled BREAKING: TERRIFYING NEW DISEASE ROCKS THE NATION as Syrian ‘REFUGEES’ ENTER AMERICA ... It began: Although that article didn't feature an image, it populated the above-reproduced photograph when the link was shared on Facebook. The appended image was unrelated; it appeared to depict a different infection known as amebiasis. The articles referenced leishmaniasis, which according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has occurred in the United States, although rarely. A CDC FAQ addressed whether leishmaniasis is found in the United States, and explained: The CDC said that the disease is generally spread by a certain type of insect: On a separate page (subtitled Epidemiology & Risk Factors), the CDC added: A fact sheet from the World Health Organization (WHO) further emphasized that the manner of transmission is overwhelmingly insect-to-human: In an 18 December 2015 ScienceAlert article, University of Glasgow Professor of Biochemical Parasitology Michael Barrett described the concerns as a manifestation of epidemiologic xenophobia: Barrett was correct in his statement that opposition to immigration and asylum couched in terms disease is nothing new. For example, in mid-2014, unaccompanied minor immigrants from Central and South America were widely and baselessly blamed for an outbreak of Enterovirus D68. As the linked snopes.com page from 2014 noted, such claims were nearly identical in tenor and shape: The foreigners carrying disease trope has, in fact, been present in American discourse for more than a century, and seems to reappear every time an immigrant or refugee population shows up in the United States. In short, leishmaniasis infections in Syria increased due to a breakdown in the country's infrastructure during a larger, ongoing conflict. However, Syrian refugees are not known vectors of the illness. While human-to-human transmission is possible in rare circumstances, the disease's vector is the sandfly. Leishmaniasis has occurred in the United States, but again, it is rare due to the U.S.'s climate and its generally low-risk population. (en)
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