Topic: Stopping the Spread of Disease Across International Borders
Country: Jamaica
Delegate Name: Nathanael Downes
School: Ann Arbor Community High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Jamaica position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
For Millennia man has tried to control the plagues and epidemics that haunt our health, and oftentimes man has failed. Since the dawn of man’s awareness, disease has been treated by quarantining the infected and letting nature run its course. However, man is not what it once was; we are now beyond the age of the leper method, and in an era of intense global connection we need to restructure international methodology for combating disease outbreaks.
Jamaica proclaims that the most effective method in stopping the spread of disease is one which encompasses global cooperation; nations must not protect borders from the diseased, but should alternatively involve themselves with the research and treatment of regions with the potential to harbor the threat of epidemics. It is an unreasonable and cost inefficient method to check every person entering any given nation, but from the failed ashes of this futile effort could rise a phoenix, so long as these nations dedicate the money to a greater potential, like setting up research facilities in foreign nations. We believe that that the least invasive and most productive manner to control disease spread is through elimination at the source. As effective as this method’s potential contains, disease is an inevitable facet of life, and for that reason we must address refugee’s.
In the eyes of Jamaica, the leper method still works best for refugee’s of disease. By sending refugees to areas with either a society completely immune to the disease or completely devoid of population, refugees could receive treatment and immunization for any given disease. As an island floating in an ocean, in the interest of Jamaica’s population, the acceptance of refugee’s is not tolerable unless they have had immunization and doctoral clearance there forthwith granting them entrance into Jamaica.
