Venezuela Sees A Surge In Insect Inflicted Diseases

Venezuela is already stuck up with humanitarian as well as political issues. Experts have recently announced regarding insect inflicted diseases that has been creating a hazard on the overall public health in Venezuela and US in general. Lately, Venezuela has been facing an increase in diseases like dengue, malaria, Chagas disease and Zika virus. Such diseases are being spread by insects like ticks, kissing bugs or mosquitoes. World Health Organization said that malaria, dengue or Chagas disease can directly lead to deaths of victims if they do not receive proper treatment.

In fact, infection from Zika virus can in turn lead to other various complications like damage of nervous system, swelling of the spinal cord. If a pregnant lady gets attacked by the disease, her fetus would also get infected by it. There was a time when Venezuela used to be one of the most conscious nations in Latin America for their efforts in improving public health. They also had programs to control the spread of mosquitoes and hence the diseases associated with it. WHO had certified Venezuela back in 1961 as the first ever country to have eradicated malaria.

The scenario has changed in 2019. Venezuela now struggles to fight the increase of malaria which has been reported to be currently the largest in the world. Reports from an analysis showed that between 2010 and 2015, there has been an increase of 359% in malaria cases in Venezuela. There were 30,000 reported cases of malaria during 2010. The figures increased to 136,402 during 2015 and further to 411,586 during 2017.

Few other reports informed that malaria outbreak in Venezuela is associated with illegal activities of mining and exploitation of the forest. Dengue has increased by 4 times between 1990 and 2016. Zika virus has been tested positive for 2057 people out of every 100,000.