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When Jesus Eduardo Rodriguez did not find his HIV drug in Venezuela, a country where everything is rare, from chicken to aspirin, he turned to Google there is a month looking for hope. What he found are stories about a Brazilian doctor who uses a plant called suriana, or guásimo, to treat his patients with HIV.
Without any other options, Rodríguez began to self-treat with guásimo. Buy the dark green leaves on the market, mix them with water in a blender and drink the spicy mixture three times a day.
"Since I started taking it, I felt better," said Rodriguez, 50. who in 2013 was diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus, which can produce AIDS. "Maybe that's the cure that God sent me after all my prayers."
That Rodriguez and others like him are desperately turning to home medicine is a further sign of the severity of the economic crisis in Venezuela. Even though the South American nation has huge oil deposits, decades of mismanagement and corruption have destroyed a health system that was once the envy of the region.
Now even basic medications like antibiotics and insulin can be difficult or impossible to find. Doctors are fleeing en mbade to escape hyperinflation and hunger. Those who remain say that they are paralyzed by constant shortages. Health workers from different parts of the country have made more than 580 times this year strikes calling for wage increases, but also basic things like bandages, painkillers and clean water.
A deadly crisis
People with chronic diseases like HIV, the crisis can be deadly. As reports of HIV-related complications and deaths increase, it's as if Venezuela had regressed in time, said Jesus Aguais, founder of Aid For AIDS, an international non-profit organization that provides medicines to Venezuelan patients. HIV that was not used
"It's as if Venezuela had returned in the 1980s, when people were taking shark cartilage and cat claw to treat HIV," before standard antiretrovirals, he said. "This crisis is incredibly deep."
A woman protests against the drug shortage in the country, in Caracas, November 17, 2016.
Fernando Llano AP
The situation is even more tragic because Venezuela was once a regional leader in the management of HIV. In 1999, under former President Hugo Chávez, the government launched the national AIDS program that provided free medicines to some 77,000 HIV-infected patients
But the fall in the price of oil , corruption and draconian prices and exchange controls, the government lacks cash to import life-saving medicines. The leader Nicolás Maduro attributes the country's problems to the "economic war" of the United States and the financial sanctions of his enemies. Despite this, the government rejected offers of international aid
which made the work of non-profit organizations – groups that import illegal drugs in the country even more vital.
In early 2018, less than 30 percent of HIV-positive patients enrolled in the government's free drug program received some form of treatment, said Mauricio Gutierrez, an HIV and political activist in Caracas. Seven months later, while the drug shortage worsened, virtually no one can get antiretroviral drugs
"Once again, we start to see the devastating effects HIV, and we are watching people die with HIV, "he said. "These deaths could have been avoided."
On Saturday, beaten by growing protests in the medical sector, Maduro announced that he was spending the equivalent of $ 93 million for "costly" oncology, transplants and anti-cancer drugs. -HIV. But we do not know when the drugs will arrive in the country, nor how long they will last.
It is unknown how many have HIV
It is unclear how many people in Venezuela suffer from HIV. The Ministry of Health stopped publishing reliable information years ago. A government presentation on the AIDS crisis in 2014 said that there were 101,871 people living with HIV at that time, and that there were 27,000 deaths related to HIV and AIDS from 1983 to 2011.
Since then, the number, "said Jonathan Rodriguez, president of Stop HIV, a Venezuelan non-profit organization.
Many doctors have fled the country and there are few HIV specialists left, he added. Hospitals no longer have the tests needed to diagnose HIV, and most clinics do not have baby formula, which is very important for babies born to HIV-infected mothers, because Breastfeeding may, in some cases, transmit the virus.
Patients reported an increase in appetite, less pain and more energy after drinking the preparation with leaves or guasimo bark. The number of HIV carriers in Venezuela has increased, condoms are scarce and prohibitively expensive, and awareness campaigns on public health and HIV have stopped.
Cody Weddle Special for the Miami Herald [19659028] "I see nothing hope," Rodriguez said. "Although there is no reliable information, we are very concerned that HIV is increasing."
The man from Caracas who began to consume guasimo concoctions was diagnosed with HIV five years ago after developing histoplasmosis, a respiratory illness when doctors discovered that he was "sick." he also had HIV, his CD4 count, an indicator of white blood cells, was 189. Anything less than 200 is considered AIDS.
He received a powerful badtail of antiretroviral drugs and the disease receded. But about a year ago, it became impossible to find drugs. When Rodríguez came across information on the internet on guasimo leaves, he pbaded it on to other patients with the HIV virus and to his doctor, Carlos Pérez.
From Caracas, Pérez told us that he had about 160 HIV patients, and most of them are experimenting with guasimo. The treatment has been used in Brazil and elsewhere as a "supplement" to antiretrovirals, he said. In Venezuela, it is a last resort.
He said that many of his patients reported an increase in appetite, less pain and more energy after drinking the preparation with guasimo leaves or bark. And there is a scientific basis for treatment. Guasimo leaves are thought to be rich in tannins and polyphenols, which attack viruses, he explained. Currently, there are ongoing studies that badyze the impact of polyphenols on HIV.
However, because of the "exorbitant costs" in Venezuela to determine HIV viral load, Pérez said that he had no conclusive evidence that treatment with guásimo will work on their patients.
Rodriguez, a former employee of an airline, said that several of his friends have died since 2017, in part because of the shortage of drugs. And he blames the government, and its refusal to repair the economy or to give up power, for the problems. But he says that he still has a burning desire to live.
"I want to see this free country, and once it's free, then God can take me," he said. "I ask the world to help us."
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