Meeting Basic Health Needs in a Venezuela in Crisis

Dr. Katherine Bliss

In a new report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Tower Center senior fellow Katherine Bliss examines the deteriorating health situation in Venezuela, where the administration of President Nicolás Maduro has been reluctant to seek external assistance to address the resurgence of malaria, a rise in maternal and infant mortality, and a lack of availability of essential medicines following the collapse in international oil prices and a deepening economic crisis.

With the government’s insistence that there is no humanitarian emergency in Venezuela, and with diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela strained, the options for direct U.S. engagement on health are limited. However, Bliss identifies opportunities for the U.S. and other countries in the region to work through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to encourage the Maduro government to fulfill its obligations to provide health services to the Venezuelan people and with Venezuelan civil society organizations, as well as Venezuelan health care providers living outside the country, to develop proposals for health sector reform, should there be a political opening to introduce them.