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51% of malaria cases are concentrated in the region in Venezuela, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization. This situation has been aggravated in recent months due to the covid-19 pandemic, and has become an obstacle in the fight against parasitic disease.
As a consequence of the growing number of new coronavirus infections, the region’s health systems collapsed and diseases such as malaria or malaria were relegated to the background, the Voice of America.
“The fight against malaria cannot be abandoned, it cannot be weakened by the existence of an epidemic or pandemic, but in practice it happens because there are difficulties in mobilizing staff, using diagnostic and treatment resources to get them there to the affected communities ”, explains the internist doctor and former Minister of Health of Venezuela, José Félix Oletta.
The specialist warns that, at times, the symptoms of covid-19 can be confused with those of malaria: “A patient who has a fever will think of covid-19, when he previously thought of malaria, and it may turn out that he has both problems simultaneously”.
Furthermore, it has been shown that as a consequence of the pandemic the black market for medicines in the country has increased. Experts indicate that people, in order not to go to health centers for fear of getting covid-19, have started buying medicines in alternative places, thus exposing themselves to a great risk, since these drugs usually have quality control problems.
Oletta adds that, due to the obstacles derived from the pandemic contingency, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) estimates that the numbers of malaria cases may increase by the end of the year by 50%, and the fatal cases, in 80%.
“If a hospital does not have water, it does not have hygiene, a way to clean … you do not have an operating hospital. Added to this is the lack of electricity, the possibility of communicating, “explains Dr. Leopoldo Villegas, a malaria expert at Global Development One and director of the NGO Asociación Civil Impacto Social en Venezuela.
The reality of the country is very different from that of 50 years ago, when the country topped the list of countries with the highest number of malaria reduction in the entire national territory. According to experts, Venezuela went from being an example throughout the world, to being the country with the worst malaria epidemic of the 21st century.
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