Venezuela’s crisis becomes deeper, the country’s health system collapsed, the diseases are spreading over borders. That uncontrollable situation brings a lot of problem to the neighbouring countries, which faced with the first cases of forgotten measles and diphtheria, Washington Post reported.
Brazilian doctors marked the start of an imported measles epidemic, urging the neighbouring countries to be more attentive. The historic outflow of migrants from Venezuela is helping spread infections to other countries, making disease the newest symbol of the disaster.
Decades ago, Venezuela was lauded as a global pioneer in combating malaria, eradicating the disease from vast sections of the nation. But malaria cases have tripled in three years to 406,289 in 2017. Brazilian authorities cite that surge, and the increase in migrant flows, for a 50 percent spike in malaria in Amazonas state last year, to 72,000 cases. Peruvian health authorities have reported a new outbreak in a transit region for migrants where no malaria cases had been recorded since 2012.
“We’re facing a [malaria] epidemic in places that didn’t have it anymore, that were clean of it,” Brazilian doctor Albuquerque said. “They have not been doing effective malaria control in Venezuela, especially in the past few years.”
In Colombia, at least eight cases of diphtheria — a bacterial infection that can block airways and cause death — were confirmed in 2018, that nation’s first instances since 2005. All eight were recorded in border regions with a large flow of migrants from Venezuela, where a diphtheria outbreak has raged since 2016, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a UN body.
The PAHO said in a statement that Venezuela’s health-care system — including disease-prevention programs — had been continually deteriorating because of economic and political problems. “This has led to an increase in the number of outbreaks of infectious diseases, particularly of measles, diphtheria and malaria. The situation is being aggravated by population movements both within the country and to neighboring countries,” it said.
