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Unofficially, the year 2017 has ended with 312 deaths from malaria in Venezuela | Photo: repository
Caracas.- The recent World Malaria Report 2018, which revealed the World Health Organization (WHO), has left evidence that Venezuela is the American country which, by concentrating 53% of the estimated new cases of malaria for 2017 on the mainland, it is at the top of the list of countries where the incidence of disease transmission is the highest in the region. Now, when we put the magnifying glass on the ground, estimates of the evolution of malaria in the months to come leave little hope: Venezuelan Public Health Society and the Red Defend National Epidemiology they predict that 2018 will end with 1,064,554 cases, including relapses, recrudescences and unregistered cases in surveillance systems.
The specialists presented an analysis in a document in which they indicated that, informally, 492,000 new cases had been recorded in the country up to epidemic week 44 of 2018; they estimate that there will be 617,379 cases by the end of the year. which represents a 50% increase over 2017. Compared with the number recorded in 2000 (29,887 cases), the increase is 1,965%.
Read also: WHO: Venezuela accounted for 53% of malaria cases registered in America in 2017
Officially, in 2017 they registered 411 586 cases of malaria, 5,297 more than the number of patients previously sent by Venezuelan health authorities to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). This figure represents an increase of 70% over those reported in 2016. Of the total number of confirmed cases from last year, 76.8% were diagnosed with malaria. Plasmodium vivax and 69% here Plasmodium falciparum.
Specialists from medical organizations reported that since 2017, in six entities, there had been no indigenous transmission of malaria (Aragua, Carabobo, Cojedes, capital district, Falcón and Mérida). Currently registered epidemic situation in nine states (Bolivar, Amazonas, Sugar, Monagas, Amacuro Delta, Anzoátegui, Nueva Esparta, Miranda and Zulia), with an increase in the spread of the disease in new municipalities and parishes.
They pointed out that in the country, the annual parasite incidence per 1,000 inhabitants was 8.23 times higher than that of 2000 (723% increase), which, for specialists, indicates that the epidemic has not been controlled.
Read also: The director of epidemiology of Táchira confirms 800 cases of malaria so far this year in the state
They disagree with the information on malaria mortality in Venezuela described in the WHO World Malaria Report. It states that deaths due to the disease have decreased between 2016 and 2017, which is different from what was published in last year's report. Although the WHO document does not contain any data on deaths in 2017, the Ministry of Health, in the Master plan to deal with the situation of malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, discussed and approved by the national authorities with PAHO and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS in June, showed that only the State of Bolivar had registered 214 deaths from malaria.
In 2017, according to unofficial estimates, 312 patients died of malaria and an estimated 456 deaths at the end of 2018, an increase of 1.775% over the number of deaths reported in 2000.
Read also: Sugar has detected 25 000 cases of malaria so far this year
Malaria has also been a threat to other Latin American countries: Venezuela exported, in October 2018, 5,176 cases of malaria to six countries of South America3,701 in Brazil; 1,431 in Colombia; 20 in Guyana; 10 in Argentina; 10 in Peru and four in Ecuador. They also warned of cases of Venezuelans with malaria arriving in the Dominican Republic and Spain due to mass migrations.
The doctors lamented that the profile of malaria in Venezuela of 2017 has not yet been published. They also rejected the Ministry of Health still not divulging the weekly epidemiological bulletins figures, which it has not released since last year. They also questioned the low budget that the state invested for the prevention and control of disease-transmitting vectors and the shortage of treatments that prevent patients from following clinical guidelines and relapsing them.
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