Emerging diseases fuel health screening.

In an age of jet travel and porous borders, a large portion of the world's population is on the move. But while international law recognizes a person's right to leave their country, no country is obliged to allow anyone in, and health can be one of the reasons. From 1960 to 1990, immigration medical screening for public health reasons became less a government priority with advances in the treatment of infectious disease, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). But since 1990, there has been a renewed interest in such screening because of the re-emergence of diseases, such as tuberculosis, combined with unprecedented population movement and a widening gap in countries' health standards. But while some screening has proved effective, other forms raise questions as to the ethical and practical limits of such measures. Countries use several kinds of health screening to detect conditions such as tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases that may pose a public health risk and conditions, such as heart disease, to avoid a burden on the host country's health services. 1969 International Health Regulations (IHR), which were revised this year, limit the health screening measures, which countries can apply, to short-term visitors who pose an immediate risk of spreading a disease. IHR, however, allow countries to apply additional health screening measures to people seeking long-term residence, recognizing the potential burden a sick person could have on the new country's health services. For this reason, there are no limitations on a country's right to demand health information of those seeking residence, while they are limited in what they can ask of short-term visitors. Health screening of tourists and other short-term visitors is therefore rare and came to the fore during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) crisis in 2003, when thermal scanners--in addition to pre-arrival health questionnaires--were used to detect passengers with a fever at airports across South-East Asia. Countries such as Argentina and Brazil, far from the epicentre of the outbreak in Asia, also adopted temporary measures by screening passengers arriving from Canada with a written questionnaire and a short interview. The booths for screening are still in place but no screening is currently being carried out, said Colin Isaacs of the Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment, who frequently travels to the two countries. Similar health screening measures have been considered in the event of an avian influenza outbreak among humans, but according to WHO are unlikely to be effective because pandemic influenza is considered more difficult than SARS to control. If only a few countries are affected, travel-related measures, such as exit screening for persons departing from affected areas, might delay international spread somewhat but cannot stop it, states a 2005 WHO report entitled: Avian influenza: assessing the pandemic. report adds: When large numbers of cases occur ... entry screening at airports and borders will have no impact. Tough anti-SARS measures raised questions about civil rights but were welcomed in the Face of a frightening new disease. Some people even volunteered to go into quarantine. In contrast, many international public health experts agree that barring people with HIV from entering a country is ineffective in preventing spread of the virus and discriminatory. …

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.