At least 17 babies have died due to germs spread by opossums that have infested a neo-natal unit at a hospital in Venezuela, parents allege.
The hospital, however, tells a different story.
Officials with the Dr. Luis Razetti Hospital in the northeast region of Anzoategui told local media other factors are to blame for the deaths, 10 of which occurred between Saturday and Sunday morning, and seven, between the previous Monday and Friday, BBC reported. One unnamed medical official, for instance, suggested poor diet may have played a role in the newborns’ deaths, the Barcelona newspaper El Tiempo reported.
Parents, understandably perhaps, given the large numbers of deaths in so short a span of time, aren’t accepting that reason. And their concerns have been buoyed by a photograph captured in Venezuelan newspapers of an opossum holding tight to a broom wielded by a hospital staffer. Another image published by local press showed an opossum scaling a wall inside the medical facility.
“My son entered without suffering any infection and the cause of his death was that: an infection,” said Alejandra Salazar, the mother of one dead male baby, to Diario Metropolitano newspaper. “We are confident that the bacteria was transmitted by this animal.”
Opossums do carry several diseases that can prove devastating, even fatal, to humans. But apparently, it’s not uncommon to see the rodents at the hospital. According to Breitbart, one family member of a dead baby said to El Tiempo that hospital officials told her: “The appearance of possums is something normal at the hospital. There is an invasion of this type of rodent, but there is no cause for alarm.”
Why are they so common?
El Universal reported one employee of the hospital said the facility, which is part of the government’s socialized medical system, has run out of cleaning supplies, and therefore workers can’t control or clean the filth the rodents are depositing.
El Tiempo reported the legislative council, a part of the state government, is due to investigate the deaths. First up is to determine exactly bow many babies have died. One recent report said a total of 50 newborns have died at the same hospital, all in the last month, and all of a similar infection, Breitbart reported.
Venezuela’s socialist medical system has been failing for years, and reports of lacking basic supplies, from needles to bandages to drugs, have become regular fare for local media.
