Venezuela's Health Sector: Current Crisis and Opportunities for International Engagement

Venezuela is experiencing a profound public health emergency. Recent reports have highlighted shortages of essential medicines and medical supplies, failing public health infrastructure, and increasingly negative indicators related to maternal and child health, as well as to the control of infectious diseases, including malaria, and of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Yet even as Venezuelans struggle to access medicine, food and other essential commodities, the Venezuelan Government has proven reluctant to acknowledge the challenges facing its health sector. Multiple actors, including civil society organizations and multilateral institutions, are engaging in dialogue to determine how to best address the causes and consequences of the current crisis.

Please join CSIS for a public discussion led by Dr. Hermes Florez, a Venezuelan health expert, and a Professor at the Miami Miller School of Medicine as well as a Visiting Professor at the Universidad del Zulia in Venezuela. The discussion will examine the origins, evolution and likely trajectory of the current health situation and the role regional bilateral partners and international organizations may be able to play in resolving the humanitarian crisis and identifying sectoral reforms that can strengthen prospects for Venezuela's health sector in the long term.