Re: Venezuela - Nine dead in Maracay Central Hospital by unidentified illness - Aragua state - Possibly a new case in Caracas
Re: Venezuela - Nine dead in Maracay Central Hospital by unidentified illness - Aragua state - Possibly a new case in Caracas
The picture at the link is one we have not seen yet, that appears to be of feet with gangrene in them (showing how widely varied the fake photos are) that is also reported as fake.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2014/09/140915_venezuela_enfermedad_maracay_dp.shtml
What is known about the "mysterious disease" that baffles doctors in Venezuela
Daniel Pardo
BBC News, Caracas
Last Updated: Monday, September 15, 2014
The governor of Aragua says
fake pictures of the disease on social networks seek to "distress the Venezuelans."
Information disclosed on Thursday that eight people died within 72 hours for a "mysterious disease" in the Central Hospital of Maracay (HCM), in the center of the country, triggered a wave of interpretations that have Venezuelans arguing since .
On Sunday, two more people died in similar circumstances to those above, as reported by their families and doctors; one in the same hospital in the capital of Aragua state and the other in the Luis Razetti Clinic Caracas.
The government has not decided on the latter two deaths, but about earlier denied the existence of "a mysterious disease" and described the information as a "media campaign against Venezuela."
The governor of Aragua state, Tarek to Aissami and Communications Minister Delcy Rodriguez versions refer to as a "defamatory" strategy to "distress to the population."
"The case has become increasingly complex," he tells the BBC Julio Castro, professor of medicine at the Central University of Venezuela and one of the leading infectious disease in the country.
"But not medically complex, but politically, which prevents neutral interpretation of what is happening," he says.
The chronology of the Central hechosHospital Maracay
Nine deaths have been reported so far by the same symptoms in the Central Hospital of Maracay.
On Thursday, the president of the College of Physicians of Aragua, Angel Sarmiento, reported the death of eight people in the HCM.
"It's a virus that does not know and has similar symptoms in all cases: fever, joint pains, skin spots and bleeding," he told the BBC on 11 September.
Sarmiento said that the similarity in symptoms and speed of their deaths was all I could report: "Companies must make appropriate tests and wait before you panic."
Next, the government Aragua Health Corporation said they had actually been two deaths instead of eight.
It confirmed that the evidence Hospital were sent to National Institute of Hygiene and Consalud in Caracas, under the government.
Then the government related leaders like Rodriguez and El Aissami rated the information as an "echo of lies intended to distress the population."
They reported that
social networking users were sharing photos to generate false panic.
And they asked the Prosecutor to open an investigation to Dr. Sarmiento.
Officials confirmed the figure of eight dead, although they occurred as common cause:
peritonitis, enterocolitis, pneumonia, cancer and diabetes, among others.
angel Sarmiento
Angel Sarmiento, president of the College of Physicians of Aragua, was the one who reported the first details. Now being investigated by the prosecution.
Since then, added to the deaths on Sunday, social networks and the attained Venezuelan media discussion does not stop.
What is it? Speaking to the local press on Monday, the health secretary Aragua, Luis Lopez, said the weekend deaths not due to any unknown virus.
"How will we admit that something is going on that does not happen. No emergency Ebola collective deaths, a bacterium that produces death, there is no case with meningococcemia (...) If something was happening we would be the first alert," said Lopez interview on Radio Union.
Dr. Julio Castro, who has been in contact with doctors from HCM, reiterates that "there is some common pattern of clinical presentation: hemorrhagic fever,
joint pains and heart failure."
Although the medical records of the first eight dead Maracay are protected by the hospital management, which is public, Castro stated that "patients have gone from mild to moderate disease and severe die in five days."
"And you have the
clinical suspicion that there is chikungunya," an African virus transmitted by the bite of a mosquito that has been booming in the Caribbean in recent months.
Gauteng is one of the states affected by vector-borne diseases, according to the epidemiological bulletin of the Ministry of Health.
The World Health Organization says that in countries like Venezuela where the
virus has reached 90% of people with fever, joint pain and rashes suffering from chikungunya.
Chikungunya and health crisis in Maracay Central Venezuela Hospital
The state of Aragua, where the Central Hospital of Maracay, the capital is, has had
high incidence of vector-borne diseases.
The health sector in Venezuela is currently experiencing one of its worst crisis in years: the shortage of medicines and medical supplies has made institutions as the Venezuelan Association of Hospitals and Clinics and the Medical Federation asked the government to declare a health emergency.
The government, although he admitted the lack of medicines and the difficulties experienced by hospitals, says the hospital emergency declaration would be "disproportionate".
Castro, however, believes that "this issue of Maracay, that we will begin to see other parts of the country, has a bearing on the situation of the country."
"This may
not be a rare virus, but an expression of management that has been given to health in Venezuela," said Castro, referring to what he considers a non-transparent management of the information about the disease.
And gives the example of Colombia, also tropical country where the Ministry of Health found 3,000 cases of chikungunya and
estimate reach 80 thousand.
Since the first case was detected in Venezuela, official agencies have counted 243 cases of the disease, which last year came to the Americas.
"In Colombia there is an evasion of the facts," says Castro. "But here trying to hide something indisputable, which is the vector arrived in the country as all countries of the Caribbean and the tropics."
