Migrants face chicken pox outbreak at Mexican border

Migrants stranded on Mexico’s northern border are decrying a lack of chickenpox vaccine amid a growing migration flow, which has caused an outbreak of about 70 children with the disease, preventing them from attending their appointments apply for asylum in the United States.

The event sparked protests by migrants from the Ágape Misión Mundial shelter in Tijuana, on the border with California, where families demonstrated at the United States Consulate General asking it to intervene, since without vaccines and with infected children they are losing their appointments. asylum.

Albert Rivera Colón, director of the shelter, told EFE that since the beginning of the outbreak, they have faced difficulties and the authorities’ refusal to access vaccines, which has worsened the situation in the shelter.

“One of the main points of the protest is the issue of health, since the department (of local government) does not manage chicken pox vaccines for that, because they tell us that only the Federation has them,” he said.

The activist confirmed that “the United States has donated 2,000 vaccines to Mexico, but the Mexican customs are not releasing them, which means that human rights are being violated.”

The pastor pointed out that last year they also had a chicken pox epidemic in the absence of a vaccine, they were in quarantine for more than eight months.

“And they never gave us vaccines for prevention, only creams and things like that,” he condemned.

He warned that “one of the problems is that if a family gets an immigration appointment to cross into the United States and one of their children has chicken pox, they will not be allowed to cross because it is a contagious disease.”

“Another problem is that the authorities told us that these vaccines are UNICEFbut this organization has not come with us for two years,” he added.

The director of the shelter explained that the children suffer from dizziness and bone pain.

This outbreak of chicken pox is occurring in the midst of a recovery in the migration flow Mexico tAfter an initial decline that caused the United States Title 42 to expire last May, which was acknowledged by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador last week.

After the end of this immigration policy, illegal encounters of migrants at the United States border decreased by 50% between May and June, but then there was a 36% increase between June and July in illegal migration of families traveling together, according to Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).