LatinNews Regional Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 19 July 2018

*Brazil’s health ministry has reported that it has detected 677 cases of measles in the country, all of which have been traced back to Venezuelan migrants that have been entering the country in droves in recent months, escaping the severe economic crisis in Venezuela, which has produced severe shortages in food, basic goods, and medicines. This mass exodus has in turn produced a humanitarian crisis in areas bordering Venezuela, which have been overrun by Venezuelan migrants seeking assistance. In Brazil the Venezuelan migration is concentrated in the northern states of Roraima and Amazonas, where hundreds of Venezuelan migrants now reside in poor conditions, which appears to have led to an outbreak of diseases that had been eradicated in Brazil such as measles. Indeed, the health ministry report notes that all of the confirmed measles cases can be traced back to Roraima and Amazonas, and that the strain of the virus has been identified as being “the same that has been observed in Venezuela”. The report adds that the measles outbreak has already left two people dead in Brazil.

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