Everyone Is Catching It - Zika In Venezuela

[niman]

'Everyone is catching it': Venezuelans fear the worst as Zika infections rise

The numbers infected with the Zika virus could be as high as 400,000 say experts, and medicine is in short supply as the country’s recession takes a toll

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/10/venezuela-zika-virus-infections-rise-recession

[niman]

 

 Rosa Salazar, 36, who is five months pregnant, stands in an alley of the Petare slum, east of Caracas, on 3 February. The Zika virus is suspected of being connected with microcephaly, a birth defect. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Stephen Gibbs in Caracas

Wednesday 10 February 2016 05.00 ESTLast modified on Wednesday 10 February 201612.31 EST

• Share on Pinterest
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Google+

Shares

148

Comments

56

 Save for later

You can spot them by their warm winter clothes, despite the tropical heat. Inside a dingy public health clinic in the Libertador municipality of Caracas, half a dozen people are waiting to find out if they have the Zika virus.

“It’s the chills that are the worst,” says Angy, 21. She displays a scarlet rash on both her upper arms. Alongside her, her mother, Belkis Carillo, a nurse, needs no convincing. “Everyone is catching it,” she says. “My sister, my cousin, my nephew. They’ve all had it.”

Medical staff said they had been strictly instructed not to give details on the number of patients confirmed infected

Zika has arrived in Venezuela with cruel timing, in the midst of the steepest recession in living memory. The crash in the price of the country’s only significant export, oil, has brought the long-mismanaged economy closer to total collapse. The International Monetary Fund predicts inflation will hit 720% in 2016. Many economists say a default before the end of the year is more likely than not.

As its government runs out of dollars, all imports, including medicines, have been radically cut back. At the Libertador clinic, handwritten notes plead with patients not to bother asking for HIV or hepatitis tests until further notice. The test kits ran out months ago.

Venezuela president declares economic emergency as inflation hits 141%

 

Read more

And, just as the authorities are accused of being overly secretive as to the real state of the economy (the official inflation figure – more than 140% – was only released in January after a 12-month delay), critics say a cover-up over the severity of Zika is under way too.

All the medical staff the Guardian spoke to at the Libertador clinic said they had been strictly instructed not to give any details on the number of patients confirmed infected. The official health ministry count of the number of Zika infections nationwide is between 4,500 and 4,700.

“We Venezuelans have a name for that,” says Belkis. “It’s called a ‘fantasy figure’.”

Doctors agree. A private association, the Network to Defend National Epidemiology, estimates that it is more likely Venezuela has 400,000 cases. Neighbouring Colombia, has reported 25,645 cases of Zika.

One possible indication of the prevalence of the virus is that the first known sexually transmitted case in the US has a Venezuelan connection. The infected patient’s partner is understood to have contracted the disease during a recent visit. On Tuesday, China confirmed that the only case it has so far detected is a man who travelled to Venezuela in January.

FacebookTwitterPinterest

 A woman who suspects her child to be infected with the Zika virus waits at an emergency room in a Caracas. Photograph: Marco Bello/Reuters

A couple of miles down the road from the clinic there is another queue, of perhaps 50 people, at the vast Concepción Palacios maternity hospital. Julimar Beumon, 19, is four months pregnant and waiting for a check up. “I’m worried,” she says.

Venezuelan authorities are looking into one recent case of microcephaly, the birth defect in which babies are born with unusually small heads, which is suspected of being connected to the Zika virus.

 

 

 

Play Video

Play

Mute

 

Current Time0:00

/

Duration Time4:32

Loaded: 0%

 

Progress: 0%

Fullscreen

 

FacebookTwitterPinterest

Living with microcephaly: ‘It drives me to achieve my goals’

The baby was born on 27 January at the infant maternity hospital in the El Valle district of the city, which is now named after the late president Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013.

Advertisement

Inside its cavernous entrance, a huge poster of Chávez comforting a young child is on display. “Only possible in Socialism”, reads the script underneath. Accessible healthcare for all was one of the boasts of his political movement. But now the hospital is another example of the severe strains Venezuela’s health system is facing.

Workers the Guardian spoke to inside the hospital, who asked not to be identified, complained of a chronic shortage of medicines – and even more basic supplies: one worker said that there had not been running water at the hospital for more than a month.

The Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation has said that 70% of basic medicines in the country are in short supply.

Venezuela’s health minister, Luisana Melo, has also indicated that there has been a notable spike in the number of cases of Guillain-Barré, a rare disorder in which a person’s immune system attacks nerve cells, which may also be linked to Zika. About 255 cases are being investigated; 55 of those affected are in intensive care.

Venezuelans are used to storing water; inadvertently creating breeding grounds for mosquitoes

Their treatment is complicated owing to a nationwide shortage of immunoglobulin, one of the therapies for the condition. Families of those affected have made appeals on social media for supplies. The state-run pharmaceutical company Quimbiotec, the only national producer, reportedly shut down production last August, owing to a lack of raw materials. It has said operations will restart soon.

Julimar says at her home there are mosquitoes everywhere, and always have been. The protection she takes is in the form of a treasured bottle of mosquito repellent. She uses it sparingly; repellent, like everything else, is in short supply. A search for the most common brand, OFF!, on the website of the two main pharmacies in Venezuela shows zero availability.

A further challenge is that most homes in Venezuela, like public buildings (including hospitals), have only intermittent running water; the result of an ongoing drought and years of inadequate investment and maintenance.

That means Venezuelans are used to storing water; inadvertently creating breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The government has pledged an information campaign and is increasing scheduled anti-mosquito fumigation visits.

Back at the Concepción Palacios hospital, another woman, Karelys Pulgar, holds her belly. She is pregnant with her sixth child, and says she is praying everything will be OK. And, in the absence of any other option, she has started her own low-tech routine. She burns empty egg cartons inside her home. “The smoke scares off the mosquitoes, I hope,” she says.