Measles, which reappeared in Venezuela in 2017, is still going strong with 548 cases in 2018, a total that is, thankfully, way down from the 5,779 cases reported in 2018.
The figures still mean Venezuela is now the third country in Latin America with the most measles cases and the first in fatalities and propagation.
However, that reduction was achieved, the data available shows, only after vaccines donated by the United Nations started arriving in 2018 when the Nicolas Maduro regime, finally but partially, admitted to a humanitarian crisis and have no medicine or drugs to deal with the outbreak. Starting in 2018, donated vaccines began arriving 2 million doses from the United Nations that year and 175,000 more doses in 2019.
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All in all, more than one Venezuelan contracted measles every day each day of 2019, even after a 1,054% reduction in incidence, year on year, reported by Unicef.
In terms of measles fatalities, the reduction was important as well: only three patients died of it in 2019 -all of them in Zulia state, the ground zero for the humanitarian crisis- while in 2018 there were 75 deaths, a decrease of 2,500%.
Measles in Venezuela is 226% more viral than in neighboring Colombia, according to data from the Pan American Health Organization. Venezuela is exporting measles: 18% of all the cases in Colombia originated in the neighboring country, reports state.
