Polio has been reported in Venezuela, where the disease had been eradicated decades ago, the Pan-American Health Organization said on Saturday, adding that the country also accounted for a majority of measles cases in the region.
A child who had been diagnosed with polio had no history of vaccination, and lives in the under-immunized and extremely impoverished Delta Amacuro State, the organization said in a report.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a crippling childhood disease caused by the poliovirus, and preventable through immunization.
Former Venezuelan minister of health Felix Oletta, who is also a doctor, told reporters that the last case of acute poliomyelitis in Venezuela was reported in 1989.
“The virus especially affects people in conditions of malnutrition and unvaccinated [people], as [in] this case,” he added.
Oletta slammed health authorities in Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government for taking more than a month to notify the organization that it had identified the virus.
International health regulations require it to do so within 24 hours.
Venezuela, devastated by economic and political crises, also accounted for 85 percent of measles cases reported across Latin America and the Caribbean over the past year, the organization said.
“There were 11 countries that reported 1,685 confirmed measles cases across the region,” of which 1,427 were in Venezuela, where 35 people have died of measles since the middle of last year, the report said.
The disease is on the rise in the South American nation led by leftist Maduro. The trend has continued this year, when cases have been reported in 17 out of 23 states and in the capital, Caracas.
In neighboring countries, where Venezuelans have migrated due to grim economic conditions, many of the reported cases have been among Venezuelan immigrants, the report said.
Venezuela has said it does not have 85 percent of the basic medical supplies it needs, including vaccines.
Maduro’s government blames US sanctions for the woes.
The government on April 6 launched a new vaccine campaign against 14 diseases, including measles and tuberculosis.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the