Skin diseases, including ringworm, are increasingly affecting the Aungmyay 2 camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Labang Village, Waingmaw Township, Kachin State.

Aungmyay 2 Camp is home to about 130 households, made up of approximately 600 people who fled from Aungmyay 2 Village and its surrounding areas, also in Waingmaw Township. Amongst those at the camp are around 30 students and 20 disabled people.

An IDP woman living in the camp said that people of all ages, ranging from newborns to the elderly have been contracting skin diseases.

According to her, every household in the camp has at least one member who has suffered from skin disease. The ringworm outbreak has been ongoing on the camp for five months and it is continuing to spread because the IDPs have have limited access to medicine and effective treatment.

She said: “The most affected are infants and the elderly. Some have ringworm so severe that it covers their entire face, and many infants are suffering with it all over their bodies. The infection is causing a lot of distress.”

Though a mobile health team from the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) visits Aungmyay 2 and other IDP camps in the area every two months to provide healthcare support, it lacks sufficient resources to eradicate all skin diseases.

The exact cause of the skin infections is still unknown, but some IDPs believe the outbreak began after several people from the camp bathed in the Ayeyarwady River and contracted skin infections that then spread from them to the whole camp.

An official from Kachin Backpack, a team of mobile healthcare workers providing medical assistance to residents in remote mountain areas and now helping the IDPs affected by skin infections, suggested that poor hygiene may be the primary cause of the skin infections.

He said: “Poor personal hygiene is likely the main factor, and in the IDP camp, the crowded conditions make it easier for the skin diseases to spread.”

He also suggested that the Ayeyarwady River could have been contaminated by pollution from excessive gold mining further upstream which could have led to those who bathed in the river contracting skin diseases.

He added that the IDPs must prioritise personal hygiene whilst officials need to provide the necessary medication and soap to treat the skin diseases and build more wells so that the IDPs have access to clean water.

The IDPs sheltering in the Aungmyay 2 camp fled their homes in and around Aungmyay 2 Village in Waingmaw Township in March 2024, following fierce fighting in the area between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the junta.

Temporary IDP camps have also been set up in Labang Village, as well as in nearby Nawngching Village, both in Waingmaw Township. The IDPs there are in desperate need of food, medicine and shelter.

There are also concerns that President Donald Trump's executive orders to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO) and pause US international aid could have worrying consequences for IDPs in Myanmar.