An extract from today's WSJ:
"MANAUS, Brazil—Contagion from Venezuela’s economic meltdown is starting to spread to neighboring countries—not financially, but literally, in the form of potentially deadly diseases carried among millions of refugees.
The collapse of Venezuela’s health system has turned what was once Latin America’s richest nation into an incubator for malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue and tuberculosis, as well as the virus that causes AIDS, medical officials in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela told The Wall Street Journal.
The diseases, many of which had been considered all but eradicated, are now cropping up beyond Venezuela’s borders—including in this Amazon city 600 miles away....
“I understand that Venezuelans are not coming here out of choice, but we need to think of our own protection, too,” said Ms. Portela, who worries about her 18-month-old daughter because of her penchant for hugging strangers. “It makes me scared.”
Measles is already spreading beyond the Brazilian Amazon to other Brazilian states, as well as Colombia, Peru and as far south as Argentina, according to recent Pan American Health Organization reports. Other diseases racing through communities in Venezuela are now crossing borders and raising concerns among health authorities as far away as the U.S."
..."The ramifications of the dire state of health services in Venezuela are readily apparent in the emergency rooms and medical posts of northern Brazil and western Colombia, where many of the 2.3 million Venezuelans who have fled the country since 2014 first arrived."
..."Doctors who have publicly exposed the state of public health have been fired and threatened with arrest".
"MANAUS, Brazil—Contagion from Venezuela’s economic meltdown is starting to spread to neighboring countries—not financially, but literally, in the form of potentially deadly diseases carried among millions of refugees.
The collapse of Venezuela’s health system has turned what was once Latin America’s richest nation into an incubator for malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue and tuberculosis, as well as the virus that causes AIDS, medical officials in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela told The Wall Street Journal.
The diseases, many of which had been considered all but eradicated, are now cropping up beyond Venezuela’s borders—including in this Amazon city 600 miles away....
“I understand that Venezuelans are not coming here out of choice, but we need to think of our own protection, too,” said Ms. Portela, who worries about her 18-month-old daughter because of her penchant for hugging strangers. “It makes me scared.”
Measles is already spreading beyond the Brazilian Amazon to other Brazilian states, as well as Colombia, Peru and as far south as Argentina, according to recent Pan American Health Organization reports. Other diseases racing through communities in Venezuela are now crossing borders and raising concerns among health authorities as far away as the U.S."
..."The ramifications of the dire state of health services in Venezuela are readily apparent in the emergency rooms and medical posts of northern Brazil and western Colombia, where many of the 2.3 million Venezuelans who have fled the country since 2014 first arrived."
..."Doctors who have publicly exposed the state of public health have been fired and threatened with arrest".
