At least 46 public sector health workers in Venezuela were infected with tuberculosis between January and June of this year, according to a report by the National Hospital Survey (ENH) prepared by the NGO Doctors for Health and published this Thursday.
The organization pointed out that these are “clinically presumptive diagnoses and not confirmed cases,” since in Venezuela “there is no weekly epidemiological report since 2015.”
The report does not confirm that health workers were infected in their workplaces, but reiterates the complaint of deterioration of the public hospital network, in which drugs and medical supplies such as masks and gloves are scarce.
The NGO explained that the continuous monitoring of respiratory pathologies due to the covid-19 pandemic has improved the surveillance capacity for tuberculosis and other similar diseases.
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), every day about 30,000 people around the world contract the disease and approximately 4,000 die from it.
In Venezuela, tuberculosis cases have increased in prison cells, according to the non-governmental organization Una Ventana a la Libertad, which defends the prison population.
From January to May, according to data from this NGO, eight prisoners died of tuberculosis.