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Venezuela is at the heart of a "major emergency" in health.
It is the opinion of Dr. Paul Spiegel. He edited and reviewed a new report from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and International Human Rights Watch, published this week, which describes the enormity of the Venezuelan health crisis and calls for action. international.
The health crisis began in 2012, two years after the start of the economic crisis in 2010. But it took a dramatic turn in 2017 and the situation is even worse than expected by researchers.
"It's amazing, no matter how big," said Spiegel, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health and professor at the Bloomberg School's Department of International Health. "The situation in Venezuela is disastrous."
The situation is so serious that, according to the report and other sources, patients who come to the hospital must bring not only their own food, but also medical equipment such as syringes and scalpels, as well as water and soap.
"The international community must react," said Spiegel. "Because millions of people are suffering."
The Venezuelan government stopped publishing health statistics in 2017; so it can be difficult to know exactly how bad the crisis is.
But by interviewing doctors and organizations in Venezuela, as well as recent migrants from the country and health officials from neighboring countries, Colombia and Brazil, the researchers gave a detailed picture of the failing health system. Some of the data also comes from the latest health report released by the government in 2017 (the Minister of Health who released the report was quickly returned.)
Vaccine-preventable diseases are making a significant comeback across the country. Cases of measles and diphtheria, rare or non-existent before the economic crisis, reached 9,300 and 2,500 cases respectively.
Since 2009, confirmed cases of malaria have increased from 36,000 to 414,000 in 2017.
The 2017 Ministry of Health report indicated that maternal mortality had increased by 65% in one year – from 456 women who died in 2015 to 756 in 2016. At the same time, infant mortality has increased by 30% – by 8,812 children from less than died in 2015 to 11,466 children the following year.
The tuberculosis rate is the highest in the country for four decades, with about 13,000 cases in 2017.
New HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have risen sharply, The researchers write, largely because the vast majority of HIV-positive Venezuelans no longer have access to antiretroviral drugs.
A recent report by the Pan American Health Organization estimated that new HIV infections increased by 24% between 2010 and 2016, the latest year of government data release. In addition, almost nine Venezuelans living with HIV (69,308 out of 79,467 people) were not receiving antiretroviral therapy.
In addition, the lack of HIV testing kits may mean that some Venezuelans are living with HIV but do not know it.
Cáritas Venezuela, a Catholic humanitarian organization, found that the percentage of children under the age of 5 suffering from malnutrition had increased from 10 to 17% between 2017 and 2018 – "an indicative level of a crisis, based on WHO standards, "write the authors of the report. .
About 3.4 million people, about one-tenth of Venezuela's total population, have left the country in recent years to survive. Venezuela's neighbors, especially Colombia and Brazil, have seen a sharp increase in the number of Venezuelans seeking medical care.
Health officials in these countries said that thousands of pregnant women arrived did not receive any prenatal care in Venezuela. The flow of migrants includes hundreds of children suffering from malnutrition.
Despite all the headlines about the collapse of Venezuela, researchers were still surprised by the scale of the crisis.
Venezuela is a middle-income country with a strong infrastructure, Spiegel said. "So it's quite amazing to see the incredible decline in health infrastructure in such a short time."
Despite the severity of the health crisis, the government continues to paint an optimistic picture of its health care system – and retaliate against anyone who reports otherwise, according to the report.
Dr. Alberto Paniz Mondolfi, who was not affiliated with the report, spoke to NPR about the situation in his country of origin. Paniz practices in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of Venezuela.
Paniz says that he has seen children in hospitals that seem to be suffering from malnutrition – and that there is not even a catheter to hook them up to intravenous ones. He saw people on the streets looking for food to eat in garbage cans. And he adds that a power outage that started on March 7 and lasted a week has had a lingering impact: Some areas still lack electricity or still do not have access to running water, he said.
According to Paniz, the report by Johns Hopkins and Human Rights Watch paints a true picture of the situation on the ground. "It's a very, very timely and complete document," he says. He praised the extensive research and said he was "relieved" that the health crisis could finally attract the attention of the international community.
Until now, help from the United States and other countries has been insufficient to cope with the crisis, say the authors of this report.
But Spiegel sees signs of hope: last week, President Nicolas Maduro decided to allow the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent to enter the country with medical supplies for about 650,000 people.
"It's still a drop of water in the bucket compared to 7 million or people who desperately need it," Spiegel said. But he thinks it's a sign that the Venezuelan leader could begin to recognize the crisis and open the country to assistance.
And the good news, says Spiegel, is that once help arrives in Venezuela, it can be distributed very quickly. "Venezuela has an infrastructure, very well trained people," he said.
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