The collapsing Bolivarian Revolution

A country run by the most incompetent socialist hacks in the entire Western Hemisphere.

‘We’re Losing the Fight’: Tuberculosis Batters a Venezuela in Crisis

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.

“Tuberculosis is the shadow of misery,” said Dr. José Félix Oletta, a former Venezuelan health minister. “If there’s a disease that is a marker of poverty, it’s tuberculosis.”

The Venezuelan government has not released health statistics since early last year, part of a sustained effort to keep the extent of the country’s decline secret.

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The Venezuela government’s tuberculosis prevention and control program was once among the most robust in the hemisphere, with the nation boasting one of the lowest rates of infection in Latin America, experts say.

But as the country has fallen apart under President Nicolás Maduro, who took office in 2013, the government has let the tuberculosis threat slip from its control, losing decades’ worth of gains.

Doctors have also observed the return of particularly complicated varieties of the disease, as well as more cases involving strains that are highly resistant to drug therapies.

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Doctors say tuberculosis infection rates in Venezuela are probably still well beneath the levels afflicting countries, mainly in sub-Saharan African and Asia, that have the worst tuberculosis epidemics.

Still, experts say, with the disintegration of Venezuela’s health system, there is little to prevent tuberculosis from spiraling out of control.

“The problem is the country doesn’t have the power to stop it,” said Dr. Julian Villalba, a Venezuelan tuberculosis expert.