Figures that are alarming. 91 hemophiliac patients died in Venezuela due to lack of treatment: President of the AVH
“As if we were at war or in a natural catastrophe”, this is how the president of the Venezuelan Association for Hemophilia, Luis Rojas, describes the situation in his country. He affirms that 91 hemophiliac patients have died in the last 5 years due to lack of treatment.
According to the leader, since 2016 the Venezuelan State does not buy the respective medicines. “In 2019 only 1.4% of the need for the entire country was acquired. We also don’t have reagents for new diagnoses ”, he laments.
As if that were not enough, the humanitarian crisis that Venezuela is going through and the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the situation of the 5,170 people diagnosed with hemophilia or other quadrilateral diseases in Venezuela.
“We have survived thanks to humanitarian aid and donations from the World Federation of Hemophilia, which are only available for emergencies or on demand and at this moment the aid has ended,” says the president.
A scene that repeats itself
According to other figures provided by the Association, the lack of medicine means that 70% of patients with hemophilia in the South American country have irreversible damage to their joints.
“We are pressing hard for them to buy the factor, we still do not see it anywhere,” claims the president of the Association, who also assures that not even two precautionary measures before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have been effective.
More problems
Luis Rojas comments that due to the pandemic, the laboratories are not producing factor as before and, to make matters worse, when medicines arrive in the country, they do not have how to transport them.
There is more. According to the leader, they have taken a step back of at least 30 years in the treatment of Hemophilia, “cryoprecipitates and plasma are being used. It is as obsolete as saying that we are going to put a coal train in the city ”.
