Venezuela: Another Nightmare

August 14, 2016 11:29 AM

Hard Times in Venezuela Breed Malaria as Desperate Flock to Mines. "With the economy in tatters, at least 70,000 people from all walks of life have been streaming into this mining region over the past year, said Jorge Moreno, a leading mosquito expert in Venezuela. As they hunt for gold in watery pits, the perfect breeding ground for the mosquitoes that spread the disease, they are catching malaria by the tens of thousands."

"Then, with the disease in their blood, they return home to Venezuela’s cities. But because of the economic collapse, there is often no medicine and little fumigation to prevent mosquitoes there from biting them and passing malaria to others, sickening tens of thousands more people and leaving entire towns desperate for help."

Venezuelan crisis previously here and here.

posted by storybored (7 comments total)

As the puddles to the miners, and the miners to the cities, and the cities to Venezuela, Venezuela to the rest of us.
posted by clew at 3:18 PM on August 14, 2016

Obligatory.
posted by officer_fred at 4:32 PM on August 14, 2016 [4 favorites]

To be fair, that article was from three years ago. Who, other than the remnants of Venezuela's non-government media, economists, and politicians could have predicted its present crisis?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:36 PM on August 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think even they expected the fallout from Saudi Arabia throwing two middle fingers at OPEC to be this bad. This issue is affecting Nigeria as well and they haven't been seizing private companies.
posted by PenDevil at 2:26 AM on August 15, 2016

The fallout would not be so bad if only Chavez had left the PDVSA alone. Instead the idiot used not just the revenue but the company itself as a source of patronage, stacking the upper management with his cronies. Venezuelan oil is thick and sour, and can only be extracted by people who know WTF they're doing. And who-coulda-knowed, engineers don't like working for the proverbial CEO's nephew, so there was a huge exodus.
posted by ocschwar at 6:34 AM on August 15, 2016

This is disheartening. I know a family in Maturín, and I missed the earlier posts about food riots.
Chavez was such a mixed bag.
posted by MtDewd at 9:06 AM on August 15, 2016

The fallout would not be so bad if only Chavez had left the PDVSA alone.

Oil prices have risen from their lows, yet Venezuelan oil production has plunged.
posted by storybored at 9:37 PM on August 15, 2016