Surveillance of the health status of Bhutanese refugees--Nepal, 1992.

From February 1991 through July 1992, 67,000 Bhutanese of Nepalese ethnic origin entered the Jhapa and Morang districts of southeastern Nepal (Figure 1) because of ethnic persecution in Bhutan. Six refugee camps were established along the Nepal-India border to accommodate the refugees. In July 1992, to assess the public health needs of these refugees, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Save the Children Fund (SCF), and CDC established a surveillance system to monitor morbidity and mortality. This report describes the surveillance system implemented in these six camps in July 1992 and presents mortality data collected from March through July 1992.