The main health risks facing refugees are created by a lack of simple human needs - clean water, food and shelter. In the cramped, basic conditions of a refugee camp, disease gains a strong foothold and can spread quickly throughout the population. Aid agencies particularly fear the spread of cholera, and epidemics of diseases such as measles, meningitis, tuberculosis and polio.
Refugees are also likely to have been traumatised by what they have seen.
As thousands flee Kosovo, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is co-ordinating an effort to ensure disease does not make life any worse for the escaping hordes. Population movement, poor sanitation, water contamination and the interrruption of public health programmes are the main reasons for the spread of disease after natural and humanitarian disasters. Often displaced populations are forced to gather in confined spaces, further enabling the spread of epidemics, such as cholera, malaria and dengue fever. Another problem is the number of injured people who need to be treated. However, the World Health Organisation says the presence of dead bodies is not a major factor in the spread of communicable diseases.