Venezuela's opposition-dominated National Assembly declared last month that the country's health system is reaching a state of humanitarian crisis, unprepared for the impending medical emergency that Zika might prompt.
Shortages and mismanagement of resources are stripping Venezuela's medical services of even the most basic supplies, such as antibiotics, gauze and acetaminophen (the pain reliever used in products like Tylenol). Venezuelan pharmacies are already under-stocked by 80 percent when it comes to products that are vital to controlling the spread of the mosquito-borne disease, claims Freddy Ceballos, president of the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation, according to El Diario de Caracas.
This means that citizens must turn to the black market in order to purchase items such as insect repellent and mosquito nets. The shortages also include a lack of the immunoglobulin treatment used to treat patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare disease that can cause muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis and long-term nerve damage, outlines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
GBS has been linked to the Zika virus, and Venezuela's government has reported 255 cases of Guillain-Barré since Zika arrived in the country last year, which is twice the number of reported cases in bordering Colombia, as captured by statistics from as explained by the World Health Organization.
In turn, this raises suspicions about the health ministry's official statistic of around only 5,000 cases of the virus in the county. In contrast, independent medical organizations are estimating that there have been at least 412,000 infected with Zika, which would make Venezuela second only to Brazil in total number of cases, according to The Guardian. Unlike Brazil, however, Venezuela has not yet reported a surge in reported cases of microcephaly, a birth defect resulting in abnormally small heads and developmental delays. But medical officials warn that a spike in microcephaly cases might start in April, when women infected by Zika through the summer start giving birth.
Additionally, the government's approach to promoting Zika awareness has diverged from the proactive measures taken by most other Latin American countries: rather than presenting public service announcements, offering prevention information, and publishing updates about the number of reported cases, Maduro's government has failed to publish epidemiological reports. While the Venezuelan government has recently reported three Zika-related deaths, further information has not been provided.
"Venezuela is showing the perfect scenario for how not to do things, in health," said former health minister José Félix Oletta, The Washington Post reports. "If you don't establish good communications, the first thing that grows isn't the epidemic, it's the fear, the panic."
The lack of resources and information plaguing the Venezuelan health system reflects the conditions faced by the country more broadly, as its inflation rate continues to skyrocket. Venezuela's oil-dependent economy has been devastated by flagging prices on a global scale, and the country's political atmosphere is also increasingly unstable, according to the Centre for Research on Globalization.
