According to health authorities, the cases are being treated at the civil hospital in this city; If the foreigners continue on their way, the health sector is notified to follow up on them.
Juchitan. – The authorities of the Oaxaca Health Services (SSO) have detected at least 20 cases of malaria, among the migrant population that arrives in this city and heads towards the United States,
These infections have only been recorded so far this year and according to the coordinator of the Epidemiology area of Health Jurisdiction number two of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Maydelit Garrido Wong, they are imported cases and correspond to the varieties of vivax malaria.
After the confirmation of the cases, the infected foreigners have been treated at the “Macedonio Benítez Fuentes” hospital in Juchitán.
According to Garrido Wong, the imported cases corresponded to people from Senegal, China and Venezuela.
Just last Saturday, October 21, a male migrant of Senegalese origin was referred to the civil hospital of this city, after testing positive for malaria, revealed the head of Health Jurisdiction number two of the Isthmus, Hebert Vidal Sánchez.
One of the complications of detecting these cases among migrants in transit is that they do not have the possibility of staying the necessary time in the same place to fully recover, since they only have an established time to legally cross this territory and reach the United States.
That is why when an infected patient, after receiving treatment in Juchitán, decides to move to the city of Oaxaca or Mexico City, their data is crossed with the Health offices so that they continue providing medications, said the Epidemiology coordinator.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria is a disease caused by a Plasmodium parasite, which is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. Only the genus Anopheles mosquito transmits malaria. Symptoms of this illness may include fever, vomiting, and headache.
Although this disease is transmitted by vectors and is not contagious, Dr. Maydelit Garrido Wong also urged the Oaxacan population to keep their yards clean and to throw away utensils that could become breeding grounds for the dengue-transmitting mosquito, which in the entity presents high numbers.
It was since the middle of last year, when the mass exodus of migrants began, in the space enabled by the immigration authorities in San Pedro Tapanatepec, the first two cases of imported malaria were detected.
At that time, the migrants themselves informed the SSO authorities of the possibility of having been infected with the bite of the Anopheles fly while passing through the point known as the El Darién Gap, a jungle area between the borders of Colombia and Panama.
Just this Tuesday EL UNIVERSAL announced that two young foreigners who arrived at the San Sebastián Tutla Migratory Mobility Center tested positive for malaria last weekend, so SSO vector personnel are carrying out more tests on people with symptoms.
According to the workers, it is likely that both migrants, a man and a woman, have contracted this disease during their passage through the Darién jungle.
Source: El Universal
