Venezuela’s Deadly Mass Exodus (Global Health Now)

By Global Health Now 

Economic collapse has pushed over a million Venezuelans across the border to Colombia in the past 18 months, marking “the biggest exodus of people in modern Latin American history,” Thomson Reuters Foundation reports. After arriving in Colombia, Venezuelan HIV/AIDS patients have died seeking life-or-death medical care no longer available at home.
 
Venezuela’s once-celebrated HIV/AIDS treatment program is in tatters. The health ministry is unable to unlock funds to re-up antiretroviral drug supplies. The ARV shortage hits LGBT+ patients particularly hard, and inconsistent treatment regimes have raised further concerns about rising drug resistance.
 
As the Venezuelan government declines assistance, the country's mass exodus and its under-5 mortality rate have come to rival Syria's.To help release new channels of support, WHO/PAHO should classify the situation as a level 2 or 3 emergency, writes Amanda Glassman of the Center for Global Development.