Crisis in Venezuela threatens neighbouring countries as infectious diseases return

Venezuela's economic ruin poses a health threat to the Americas and potentially beyond, as diseases like measles and diphtheria re-emerge and spread to neighbouring countries, academics have warned.

The country's meltdown has been so profound its health system resembles that of a war-shattered state and people are no longer vaccinated for common infectious diseases.

A paper in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases says there are parallels with the return of polio in Syria and diphtheria in Yemen, after those countries descended into violent chaos.

“The ongoing diphtheria and measles epidemics in Venezuela, and spillover into neighbouring countries, evoke the re-emergence of vaccine-preventable diseases observed in Syria and Yemen and the consequent threat to regional, and potentially global, public health,” it said.

Outbreaks of measles and diphtheria have emerged years after they were thought to be under control in the country. And cases are now spreading to neighbours like Brazil and Colombia, as large numbers of Venezuelans flee abroad from poverty. There is even a risk that polio will return.

Earlier this month, a report in the Lancet warned that infant mortality rates have skyrocketed amid the turmoil, with 21.1 deaths per 1000 live births in 2016, compared to 15 per 1000 live births in 2008.

The Latin American nation has been gripped by hyperinflation and poverty since Nicolas Maduro became president following the death of Hugo Chavez almost six years ago. Prices are increasing at an estimated million percent a year and the GDP has halved since 2013.

“Venezuela’s tumbling economy and authoritarian rule have precipitated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis,” the authors warn.

As millions have fled, the country has also seen an unprecedented exodus of trained medical staff, according to the paper written by academics led by Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi, a Venezuelan infectious diseases pathologist.

The medical system in Venezuela is also battling long-term shortages of medicines and long term vaccination programmes have started to fall apart.

“The continued mass exodus of around two million persons from Venezuela since 2014, not only to Colombia, but also to Ecuador, and Brazil, represents an ongoing risk that vaccine-preventable diseases will be carried with them,” the academics warn.

Measles had been stamped out in Venezuela in 2007, but by 2017 it had returned. The country now contributes nearly seven in 10 cases of measles in the Americas and most of the measles-related deaths. Venezuela's indigenous people are particularly badly hit.

Diphtheria had not been seen in Venezuela for 24 years when it was spotted again in 2016. The collapse in the public health system means that fewer than half of the country's population is getting vaccinated, leaving millions of children at risk. 

Vaccination rates have also plummeted for poliomyelitis, a crippling virus.

“Combined with the weakening of surveillance programmes, forced migrations, and a prolonged political, economic, and food crisis without foreseeable resolution, these factors have set the stage for potential re-emergence of poliomyelitis,” the paper says. 

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