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Source: http://www.pulse.ng/the-new-york-tim...id8138799.html
'We're losing the fight': tuberculosis batters a Venezuela in crisis
CARACAS, Venezuela ? His family thought he just had a bad cold, nothing serious.
Published: 11:20 , Refreshed: 11:19
The New York Times
But Victor Mart?nez kept getting worse. By mid-January, he lay in a hospital ward, wasting away from tuberculosis.
A month later, at his wake, stunned relatives tried to reckon with the resurgence of a disease that many Venezuelans thought had been mostly confined to the history books.
?I really don?t know what to think,? said Nileydys Yesenia Aurelia Mart?nez, his niece. ?Even the last thing you?d imagine is happening.?
Tuberculosis, a disease that until recently seemed to be under control in Venezuela, is making an aggressive comeback, overwhelming a broken health care system ill equipped for its return, doctors and infectious disease specialists say.
The illness ? like malaria, diphtheria and measles ? has surged in Venezuela during a profound economic crisis that has battered almost every aspect of life and driven an exodus of Venezuelans, including many experienced doctors.
Though normally associated with the very poor, tuberculosis has begun to stalk a broader population of Venezuelans, including the middle class. Declining nutrition from food shortages and rising stress throughout the country may be weakening immune systems, doctors say, leaving people more susceptible to illness.
And with more families sinking into poverty, people have been forced to double up in increasingly crowded homes, accelerating transmission of the disease...
'We're losing the fight': tuberculosis batters a Venezuela in crisis
CARACAS, Venezuela ? His family thought he just had a bad cold, nothing serious.
Published: 11:20 , Refreshed: 11:19
The New York Times
But Victor Mart?nez kept getting worse. By mid-January, he lay in a hospital ward, wasting away from tuberculosis.
A month later, at his wake, stunned relatives tried to reckon with the resurgence of a disease that many Venezuelans thought had been mostly confined to the history books.
?I really don?t know what to think,? said Nileydys Yesenia Aurelia Mart?nez, his niece. ?Even the last thing you?d imagine is happening.?
Tuberculosis, a disease that until recently seemed to be under control in Venezuela, is making an aggressive comeback, overwhelming a broken health care system ill equipped for its return, doctors and infectious disease specialists say.
The illness ? like malaria, diphtheria and measles ? has surged in Venezuela during a profound economic crisis that has battered almost every aspect of life and driven an exodus of Venezuelans, including many experienced doctors.
Though normally associated with the very poor, tuberculosis has begun to stalk a broader population of Venezuelans, including the middle class. Declining nutrition from food shortages and rising stress throughout the country may be weakening immune systems, doctors say, leaving people more susceptible to illness.
And with more families sinking into poverty, people have been forced to double up in increasingly crowded homes, accelerating transmission of the disease...