The Migrant Caravan, Central America, and Vaccination Rates

Many commentators have recentlywritten andsaid that members of the migrant caravan and Central American immigrants in general are diseased.   Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent David Ward claimed that the migrants are “coming in with diseases such as smallpox,” a disease that the World Health Organization (WHO) certified as beingeradicated in 1980.   One hopes Mr. Ward was more careful in enforcing American immigration law than in spreading rumors that migrants are carrying one of the deadliest diseases in human history nearly 40 years after it was eradicated from the human population.  But even on other diseases, Ward and others do not have a compelling argument.WHO has national estimates of vaccination coverage rates by country and type of vaccine.   It’s unclear whether vaccination coverage rates includeimmigrants, but they definitely include those born in each country as of 2017.   Vaccination coverage rates for the United States were unavailable for Tuberculosis and one of the polio vaccines (IPV1) while the IPV1 vaccine coverage rate is also unavailable for Costa Rica.  We shouldn’t expect vaccination rates to be the same in all countries for at least two reasons.  Fi rst, some diseases are more prevalent in certain climates so the requirement for vaccination there can be lower or higher.  Second, vaccines have a positive externality so there is less of an individual incentive to become vaccinated as all of the benefits are not internalized...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs