Returns of Sierra Leone refugees from Guinea may pose health risks, WHO warns
19 September -- With the current crisis in Guinea threatening to push large numbers of Sierra Leonean refugees back to their home country, the World Health Organization (WHO) today warned that a new influx will put intense pressure on already overburdened health centres there.
The return of refugees would be a "step too far" for both clinics in the camps and local health facilities that are struggling to re-establish themselves in the face of high disease rates and years of collapse, WHO cautioned in an overview of the current situation in the area.
Dr. William Aldis, the agency's representative to Sierra Leone, warned that the impact would spread beyond the refugees to the general population. "It is a misunderstanding if people believe that the crisis has only caused problems for the people in the camps," he said.
Over 10,000 people have already flooded the frontline town of Kenema in the past six weeks, swelling the population in displacement camps by almost 15 per cent, with the town itself also at "bursting point," according to WHO. The agency called hygiene and sanitation "the most pressing problem, with rats abounding and communicable diseases a constant concern." Rats transmit Lassa fever, a highly infectious virus. The town of Kenema is located in what WHO calls "Sierra Leone's Lassa fever belt," where health workers are worried by the high rates of the disease.
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