Venezuela quake survivors face infection threat as aid race intensifies

Doctors in Venezuela say untreated wounds and disease now threaten earthquake survivors. The warning highlights a worsening medical crisis as damaged hospitals and crowded shelters strain relief efforts.

In Short

• Thousands remain displaced in shelters and outdoors without safe water
• Officials reported over 1,900 deaths, while many more people remain missing
• Thirty-eight hospitals were damaged, limiting surgeries and essential trauma care

A week after Venezuela's historic twin earthquakes, doctors warned on Wednesday that untreated wounds and infectious diseases are now the biggest threat facing survivors. Thousands of displaced people are sleeping in crowded shelters or outside without clean water, amid poor sanitary conditions, and aid workers said the aftermath has turned into a major medical crisis that could claim more lives in the coming days and weeks unless it is quickly brought under control.

Even as rescue teams from more than two dozen countries continued searching for survivors under the rubble, the death toll kept rising. Venezuelan officials had counted more than 1,900 deaths as of Tuesday, while thousands more remained missing, leaving families waiting by collapsed buildings in the hope of finding their loved ones.

"The issue we foresee just around the corner are the infections that patients who have been exposed to the disaster for the longest time might bring," said Eugenio Cova, head of the trauma unit at Hospital del Oeste Dr Jose Gregor Hernandez in Caracas.

The hospital has treated scores of severely injured people since the June 24 earthquakes despite a shortage of essential medical equipment. Cova said parts of the public hospital are now inaccessible because of possible earthquake damage, and that it lacks screws and plates needed for orthopaedic surgery as well as medicated gauze to prevent infections. According to the government, 38 hospitals across the country were damaged or otherwise compromised by the earthquakes.

"We've already gone through the period of complex trauma - which will continue to occur - but now it's complicated by infections," Cova added.

Rescue operations continued on Wednesday even as the usual window for survival under rubble, typically 48 to 72 hours, narrowed. Teams were still finding a small number of survivors against the odds, including a toddler who had been trapped for six days on Tuesday.

The United States, which took control of Venezuela's oil industry after seizing Venezuela's former leader, Nicolas Maduro, in January, has increased its assistance in recent days. Steven McCloud, a spokesman for the US Southern Command, told The Associated Press that 900 military personnel were supporting relief and rescue efforts as of Wednesday. He said another 100 people from the US State Department had been deployed to help aid work on the ground.

The full toll of the earthquakes remains unclear. A non-governmental digital database where families can register missing loved ones showed that more than 40,600 people were still unaccounted for as of Wednesday, underscoring the scale of the disaster as doctors, rescuers and aid workers deal with both the immediate injuries and the growing risk of disease.

With PTI Inputs

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