Venezuela: Cases of malaria surge 76% and infant mortality spikes amid national crisis

In 2016, Venezuela’s number of cases of malaria grew 76 per cent, maternal mortality skyrocketed 60 per cent, and infant mortality rose 30 per cent, government figures show, as the South American country continued to see the collapse of its entire system of medical care and a broadening economic crisis.

Recession and currency controls in Venezuela have led to declines in local production and imports of foreign goods, resulting in shortages of everything from flour to vaccines and medicines. Three-quarters of the population lost an average of 19lb in body weight last year because there is so little food.

Maternal mortality, or death during pregnancy or within 42 days of the end of a pregnancy, rose 65 per cent to 756 deaths, according to the report cited by Reuters. There were also 240,613 cases of malaria last year, up 76.4 per cent compared with 2015.

The Venezuelan government’s statistics also show that infant mortality, or deaths of children aged under one, increased around 30 per cent to 11,466 cases last year.

Around the world, infant death disproportionately affects marginalised and economically vulnerable populations, according to Wendy Hellerstedt, an epidemiology professor at the University of Minnesota.

Even though infant deaths in Venezuela still remain significantly less common than in the world’s most impoverished countries like South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they continue to rise, while rates in those poorer countries have been falling.