Mitigation of Hepatitis B in Britain - Essay Example

? Hepatitis B Mitigation in Britain Hepatitis B is a serious killer disease and its prevention should be paramount in addressing the health care concerns of any country’s population. The mode of transmission of the virus that causes hepatitis B infection is similar to that of HIV (STANBERRY & BERSTEIN, 2000: 320). This makes hepatitis B an extremely dangerous disease, and similar efforts such as those focused on HIV, should also be directed towards hepatitis B. The fact that the hepatitis B virus spreads faster than the HIV should be a cause for concern for people who are involved with health care legislation. Most governments are characterised by focusing their resources towards control and prevention of the spread of HIV without paying close attention to hepatitis B. Once a person contracts HIV, the life of that individual is not threatened. This is because there are ways of managing the virus and the individual’s life can be prolonged through the use of antiretroviral drugs. These antiretroviral drugs help keep the HIV levels in the body down, enabling the person to live a normal life free of any complications (ACHORD, 2009: 104). The same cannot be said of a hepatitis B victim because there are no drugs available to mitigate the effects of the virus in the body, especially on the liver (ZUCKERMAN & MUSHAHWAR, 2004: 159). The fact that the hepatitis B virus can be spread faster than the HIV and that hepatitis B’s probability of killing its victim is high makes it a necessary requirement that governments adopt more stringent measures in curbing the spread of the virus. Spread of the hepatitis B virus can largely be attributed to immigrants who come from regions of the world where there is a high prevalence of the risk of contracting the virus. In the context of this paper, focus is going to be drawn onto immigrants of African origin. The fact hepatitis B affects a majority of people at their most productive age irrespective of their racial, ethnic or religious background is a cause for serious concern. Hepatitis B, as HIV, cuts across all cultural boundaries and its impact, on the health of nation’s population and economies is going to greater lengths than that caused by HIV if not properly mitigated (SHERMAN, 2012: 178). The migration of Africans to the UK has been on the increase from the 1990s with the annual estimates according to the LFS (Labour Force Survey) being at around 30,000 people (OECD, 2010: 88). The majority of these immigrants originate from the West and Central Africa regions of the continent. Migration from other regions of the continent, especially South and East Africa, were noticeable in 2000. All of these figures represent the immigrants who came to Britain and never left. Most of the African immigrants to the UK are asylum seekers especially from sub-Saharan Africa because this region has experienced wars, civil conflicts and political unrest. Examples of these countries are Chad, Central African Republic, the Congo basin and Mali (OECD, 2010: 85). A common characteristic of African asylum seekers is that they come from Britain’s former colonies and the bulk of these applications come from Southern and Eastern Africa. Examples of these countries are Somalia, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Congo and DR Congo and Nigeria. Migration for asylum purposes has been on the decline, and a new emerging trend is now being witnessed where the majority of migration is work related. The bulk of these immigrant workers is African doctors and nurses with the rest of the immigrant population being accounted for by dependants and students. The majority of these immigrants live in the Southern and Eastern regions of the UK with people from Eastern and Southern Africa being more geographically widespread than other Africans. The demographics of Africans living in the UK present a situation where their interaction with the rest of the white population is high. If they were carriers of the hepatitis virus, their likelihood of spreading the virus to the rest of the population would be extremely high. African immigrants to the UK come from regions that have prevalence of the hepatitis B virus. This situation is not different from other regions of the world, but the socioeconomic situation in these countries exposes their populations to high risks of contracting the virus. This is in part attributed to poor living standards and inefficient health care facilities and resources. Vaccination, which is the most effective mode of combating the virus infection, is ineffectively administered, or it is non-existent altogether. When these people migrate to the UK, they act as a significant threat to the safety and health of the rest of the population. According to the LFS, an overall estimate of the African immigrant population is single or is a single parent. This indicates the possibility of this portion of the population engaging in sexual activities with the rest of the non-immigrant population (KNAWAY, 2010: 213). This creates a precedent for the spread of hepatitis B to an even larger population. The UK government should put up measures to ensure there is no unwarranted spread of the virus through means that can be avoided. The best way to tackle this challenge is to emphasise screening of all African immigrants entering the UK for all diseases with particular emphasis on hepatitis. All people entering the UK and in almost all other countries, people are required to show proof of their medical integrity (HAUSEN, 2007: 318). This was an old tradition established during the colonial era where people who travelled out of Britain were required to prove that they had not contracted a foreign disease form the colonies. This measure was taken to curb the spread of tropical diseases such as malaria and yellow fever, which were leading killer diseases. Screening is the best option for controlling and preventing the spread of the hepatitis B virus because those found with the virus can be identified and monitored while those lacking are vaccinated. This move is faced with the challenge of being labelled as racist and discriminatory against people of African descent (COOK & ZUMLA, 2009: 483). To address this, the UK government can devise ways of communicating the actual and true intent of the screen by making it known that hepatitis is a leading killer disease in the country. Human rights groups and other organisations pose the greatest challenge to the realisation of hepatitis B screening of African immigrants to the UK. This is because they create publicity about the screening policy but paint it in a negative light drawing attention away from the benefits it could accrue for the country in terms of health welfare. To mitigate this negative publicity, the government and other institutions can embark on public awareness campaigns on the benefits the screening exercises would accrue for them (MILLER, 2013: 139). Another way of avoiding this confrontation with the activist groups is to encourage the immigrants to ensure that they are hepatitis B virus-free before embarking on the journey to the UK. This method can be circumnavigated by most of the applicants because the screening costs money and they would lie about their hepatitis B status if they had to, as long as it got them into the UK (LOUE & SAJATOVIC, 2012: 631). To better engage African immigrants to the UK about their hepatitis status, authorities should involve parties in the immigrant’s home country about the importance of the screening exercise (RASOOL, 2011: 201). The immigrants can be sensitised on the purpose and importance of screening for the hepatitis B virus. Creating awareness in this group about the negative impacts of hepatitis B in the society can help them be more willing to participate in screening exercises. When African immigrants accept screening as a necessary and critical process of eliminating the virus, screening can also be implemented for other life threatening diseases. Through screening, other life threatening diseases can also be spotted at points of entry and their spread curtailed. The spread of most contagious diseases can be prevented and controlled through screening because what lacks in the effective control of their spreading is sufficient logistical information about them (MARZUKI et al., 2003: 271). Immigrants to the UK who are of African descent have a high risk of contracting hepatitis B because of the nature of their living conditions. People who immigrate to the UK find that they have to live in squalid conditions, in temporary shelters before they move on to more suitable housing. Immigrants living in these temporary shelters have a higher risk of contracting the hepatitis B virus from those infected because in these conditions, it is difficult to maintain proper hygienic standards (IVANOV & BLUE, 2008: 138). African immigrants to the UK are all not of legal status, which means that even if there were screening for the virus, illegal immigrants would not be accounted for. The other factor that contributes to the high risk of contracting the hepatitis B virus in the UK for immigrants is that they tend to live in one geographical location. This makes it possible for those who are not infected to contract the virus through interaction. The legal immigrants tend to encourage other members of their families and friends to come to the UK by any means which is mostly illegal. These illegal immigrants end up living with the screened and healthy immigrants increasing the risk of contracting the hepatitis B virus (OECD, 2010: 90). African immigrants to the UK are brought by work related reasons as opposed to the past where they came as asylum seekers. These immigrants end up in low paying jobs where the working conditions are deplorable. If a worker in this work environment is a hepatitis B carrier, the chances of spreading the virus to other co-workers are extremely high because as it is expected, the hygiene standards in these places are below par (FREEDMAN, 2009: 108). The safety and health standards where the majority of African immigrants work are not adequately sufficient to ensure that their welfare is guaranteed. Language barrier is another challenge that is encountered by these immigrants. Language barrier can be attributed to nature of African immigrants living in one concentrated geographical location. This makes it easier for them to interact because language is a unifying factor and makes life easier. Language barrier makes it difficult for African immigrants to advocate their basic human rights in the workplace (HUTTON, 2009: 147). It is recommended that immigrants, with the intention of entering the UK, should hold at least an elementary level of understanding of the English language, which would make their life easier. According to the LFS, about 10 percent of the immigrant population in the UK do not understand English and they have to rely on their relatives and friends to interpret for them. A good example is elderly immigrants from Somalia and Northern African countries such as Algeria and Tunisia (OECD, 2010: 180). African immigrants come from different ethnic backgrounds that have various dialects and languages. Immigrants from Southern African countries are speakers of the Zulu and Xhosa languages although English is predominantly well understood. In regions in Africa such as Central African countries, French is a preferable foreign language. Immigrants from Eastern and Western African countries are predisposed to the English language because most countries in these regions were former British colonies. The UK government should implement a policy where they hire immigrant doctors in areas of high immigrant population (LOUE & SAJATOVIC, 2012: 671). According to Loue and Sajatovic (2012), this would improve the immigrants’ access to medical facilities because incidences caused by a language barrier would be reduced. This would also reduce incidences of immigrant asylum seekers being turned away from health facilities because they are not aware of their rights. Learned African immigrants should be encouraged to interact and help their English illiterate compatriots in learning English. African immigrants in the UK live in squalid housing where there is congestion, lack of proper sanitation and drainage which all contribute to poor health standards. According to the LFS, most African immigrants are of the working category and about 11% of these workers have dependants. These dependants are mostly children who range from school going children to toddlers. Children also have the same high-risk exposure to the hepatitis B virus and even more so because they are less aware of how to prevent and handle the virus situation. The UK government should carry out vaccination drives in all regions of the UK where there is a high concentration of immigrant settlements (LOUE & SAJATOVIC, 2012: 435). Emphasis should be placed to ensure that all school going children are vaccinated against the hepatitis B virus. 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