Specialists explain causes. These diseases and COVID show the fragility of the country’s health system, which since 2016 has not published epidemiological data
An outbreak of yellow fever has been the latest infectious disease to resurface in Venezuela. This month he once again highlighted the fragility of the country’s health system, which in the last five years has seen the reappearance of at least four infectious diseases, amid the epidemiological silence that it maintains.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is considered secretive by the authorities in terms of numbers of infections and deaths, yellow fever reappeared. In 2017, it was measles and in 2016, diphtheria and malaria.
These infectious diseases have not been registered since the last century and specialists assure that they have reappeared due to the lack of adequate public policies in the health system.
One of the main reasons would be the low epidemiological surveillance and the decrease in immunization against all diseases that are preventable with vaccines.
Federico Cabrera, specialist in epidemiology, says that the resurgence of this type of disease, considered tropical, bacterial and vector-transmitted, would be linked to the absence of vaccination campaigns, weather conditions, poverty and unclean conditions that Venezuela must be facing.
“Vaccination has been neglected a lot due to the COVID-19 issue in South American countries, children stopped getting vaccinated, that also happened in Ecuador, but happily there were no outbreaks of these diseases,” says the specialist.
To counteract this type of infection, Cabrera considers key, in addition to vaccination, aspects such as fumigation, something that may also be lacking in the country due to the crisis. He adds that hygiene is also key and that it should be implemented as an “educational measure” given the lack of resources.
In that country, malaria, diphtheria and measles have been contained in large part thanks to the help of international organizations, such as the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) or the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
In 2019 alone, Venezuela was ranked as the most affected nation in Latin America, with more than 320,000 diagnosed cases of malaria.
As for the yellow fever outbreak, the Government has started immunization days in some points and images of Venezuelans going to get vaccinated have circulated.
Orianny Granados, health journalist from As it is, note that most cases of these infectious diseases occur in the south and east of the country. “Venezuela reported a first case of yellow fever last year, after fourteen years,” he says, and that now in September, PAHO confirmed more cases in the states of Monagas and Anzoategui.
Granados says that the government did not give an alert about the yellow fever outbreak, but rather that the organization Médicos Unidos de Venezuela notified of the cases. “The local authorities leaving after that, but this information had to be made public from the first moment, but it is something that does not happen in Venezuela.”
However, there are alerts that in the country also the most common diseases such as rotavirus or pneumococcus have not been eradicated and that there are no active vaccination campaigns against them.
Rotavirus or pneumococcal vaccines were previously administered to children in their first months of life and in public health institutions, but this no longer occurs. The situation is also complex to obtain the vaccine against hepatitis A.
According to Venezuelan unions, whooping cough, an infection that is frequent in nursing children, registers an increase in cases and it would also be attributed to the fact that the vaccination is not being correct. Influenza is another respiratory illness that has become very common in Venezuela in recent years.
Granados comments that “due to the pandemic, the country’s health centers began to treat only cases of COVID-19 and that, although the vaccination programs for minors did not stop, mothers were restrained from taking their children to vaccinate.”
“There are vaccines that have become totally private, such as pneumococcus that can cost over $ 100 … so many families simply cannot vaccinate their children,” he stresses.
The minimum wage in Venezuela is $ 2.40 and, according to the recent National Survey of Living Conditions (Encovi), 94.5% of the population lives in poverty.
Given the health panorama that the country presents, different scientific societies, medical groups and NGOs have expressed their concern and have asked that epidemiological surveillance be strengthened and information on pathologies be published. Venezuela has not published epidemiology data since December 31, 2016.
“Having epidemiological data in Venezuela is almost impossible, since 2016 we do not know where we stand in terms of this type of disease, the information is very scarce, recently we had an information document from the capital district that spoke of vaccine data for the month September and coverage for diseases such as yellow fever, barely had 48%, a goal that should be 95%, ”says Granados.
Manuel Figuera, president of the Venezuelan Society of Infectology, has said in local media that “it is regrettable” that they cannot access the number of cases of the different pathologies present.
The specialist has also questioned the lack of investment in the scientific sector, in the development of research, in universities, and that experts in epidemiology and infections have been allowed to go. (I)
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