Miami Herald: Zika swamps Venezuela’s ailing healthcare system
* As zika swamps Venezuela, authorities remain silent
* Congress calls the faltering healthcare system a ‘humanitarian crisis’
* Likely worst crisis in the Americas
MARACAIBO, VENEZUELA: When Yelitza Oberto’s legs started cramping a few days before New Years, she thought she was paying the price for standing in line for hours to get a car battery in her lack-of-everything Venezuela.
It soon turned out she had the virus of the moment: Zika. No drug would alleviate her fever, headache, skin rash and painful joints. By January, she couldn’t even walk by herself.
Oberto was taken to the Maracaibo University Hospital, the largest public health facility in western Venezuela, where she was rushed to the ICU. There are currently 26 other patients like Oberto in intensive care at the hospital alone. One of them is a 17-year-old woman partially paralyzed.
The latest crisis to swamp Venezuela’s struggling healthcare system is being carried by an army off mosquitoes. Venezuela’s emergency rooms are filling up with Zika patients. Brazil has received international attention for Zika infections there but some civil society groups and medical organizations say that with hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans suffering from the virus, the country may be facing the worst Zika crisis in the Americas.
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WNU Editor: The focus in the above article is on Venezuela and its inability to counter the impact of the Zika virus. But truth be told .... no one is prepared for this crisis .... and it is spreading quickly.