The Chicago Department of Public Health recently published a bulletin warning of an increase in chickenpox. “Most cases have been in people newly arrived from the U.S. southern border living in shelters,” officials advise. “Most reported cases have been in people who recently arrived from the U.S. Southern Border and are currently living in shelters, and many have been in school-aged children,” according to the public health notice. Migrants at a crowded Chicago shelter in a converted warehouse say diseases are spreading rapidly because of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and a lack of healthcare providers on-site. On Dec. 18, four children were rushed to local hospitals after exhibiting symptoms including fever and vomiting. Illinois public health officials also recently launched a phone line to provide consulting due to “an almost tripling in the number of congenital syphilis” diagnoses. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), between 2021 and 2022, there has been a 31.7 percent increase in the number of congenital syphilis cases, with a 17.2 percent increase in the number of primary and secondary syphilis cases among females aged 14-44. “More than 10 times as many congenital syphilis cases were reported in 2022 than in 2012,” the CDC says. The public health agency says in an advisory that migrants “are not required to meet vaccination requirements before coming to the United States,” adding that shots are just “strongly recommended.” Earlier in the year, New York health officials warned that noncitizens flooding into the city were responsible for an uptick in diseases including Varicella and Tuberculosis. Most of the Varicella cases were among children who had not been vaccinated against it, though the state's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene noted that there were cases among young adults. The agency said, “Health case providers should also assess all immigrants who recently arrived in the U.S. for latent TB infection.”Public health officials are issuing new warnings about diseases and are specifically tying a recent rise in infections to the crisis at the U.S. southern border.
