Alarming Levels of Hepatitis C Virus Prevalence among Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: Emergency National and International Actions Warranted

The southeast Asian nation of Myanmar includes Rakhine State (known as Arakan State before 1989).The Rohingya people of Myanmar residing at Rakhine state were stripped of citizenship in 1982, as it was told that they could not meet the requirement of proving their forefathers settled in Burma before 1823, and now account for one in seven of the global population of stateless people. 1 In June 2012, violence between Rohingya and Rakhine residents of Rakhine State broke out.Subsequently, spiraling violence's followed, and the Myanmar government sent the military to affirm peace.However, these authorities have also been reported to join the Rakhine in the looting and killing of Rohingya.These facts resulted in forceful migration of about one million Rohingya people to Bangladesh in 2017. 1 Bangladesh is a country of 160 million people and belongs to one of the developing countries with multiple constraints and limitations regarding healthcare delivery system.Thus, the health impact of about one million Rohingya refugees within a short period is enormous; especially the incidents and prevalence of communicable diseases may turn to epidemic parameters. 2 In emergency and crisis settings, water and sanitation, food and nutrition, shelter and nonfood items, access to health services, and information are five crucial domains required for immediate management of suffering refugees.However, chronic infections and chronic diseases take its toll for a prolonged period and even paralyze the entire survival system of the refugees as well as their shelter providers.Bangladeshi is endemic for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV), and these viruses cause chronic liver diseases such as cirrhosis of liver and liver cancer.In a situation like the Rohingya refugee crisis, most of the national and international attention is diverted to shelter, food, and control of acute infections and epidemics.3,4 Finally, everyone remains busy to ensure a safe return of these refugees to their native country.Thus, almost nothing is done for control and containment of chronic infections; however, the long-term effects of these diseases are immense, and these may shatter all sorts of positive approaches of refugee handling.These facts and realities led us to undertake a pilot study to assess the prevalence of hepatitis viruses in one of the Rohingya refugee camp at Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh.The name of the refugee camp is Lambasia camp, and it is situated under control of Ukhia police station at Cox's Bazar district.There has been a total of 267 refugees at the camp and sera were collected from 75 subjects.All sorts of permissions were taken from the camp authority, Government of Bangladesh, and local health authorities.The sera were centrifuged