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[In Depth] Refugee crisis brings new health challenges

ScienceNOW - Fetched: April 21st, 2016, 3:00pm UTC

More than a million refugees and migrants entered Europe last year, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This exodus is creating new challenges for European public health officials. Many of the migrants come from countries where public health systems are in disarray, and some are infected with pathogens that are rare, or even unheard of, in Europe. Germany saw a 30% increase in the number of tuberculosis cases in 2015; doctors also need to be prepared for diseases they have never seen before. Still, scientists say that the influx of unusual infections is far less a threat to native-born Europeans than to the health of the refugees themselves. Author: Kai Kupferschmidt

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