Not Even Social Media Can Find Medicine in Venezuela

https://panampost.com/thabata-molina/2016/01/28/not-even-social-media-can-find-medicine-in-venezuela/

Besides the lack of basic foods, shortages in Venezuela have critically affected health-care products as well. Approximately 70 percent of essential medicines, and 80 percent of medication for chronic diseases, are disappearing from store shelves, putting millions at risk, according to the NGO Codevida.

This is why Venezuelans take to social media, especially Twitter, to see if a charitable soul either has or knows someone who sells a particular medicine. However, even this desperate strategy is no longer working.

“The problem is that there are no medicines in Venezuela. Not even solidarity on social media is helping now, because they have disappeared from the country’s shelves. We warned that in February and March the situation would be worse,” Francisco Valencia, director of Codevida and a former transplant patient, tells the PanAm Post.

Valencia says that the NGO has been in touch with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Its representative in Venezuela, Celia Riera, has promised to help ease the country’s humanitarian crisis.