Yurman Torres is standing in line at the foot of Avila mountain, on the edge of Caracas, to fill a large jug with water, a rare commodity in crisis-hit Venezuela.
Water scarcity is one of a long list of headaches for bstruggling South American oil giant, but it comes with a particularly nasty risk. As Venezuelans stockpile water in their homes, health officials warn, they risk fueling an expansion of the mosquito population, and with it the transmission of Zika, the mosquito-borne virus blamed for causing brain damage in babies.
“What can we doIJ We have to come here every day,” said Torres, 36, who fills two jugs every morning before going to work — just one of the daily hoops he jumps through to find the basic necessities in a country reeling from a deep recession and chronic shortages. Venezuela, which hardly needed another problem to add to its triple-digit inflation and plunging oil revenues, has registered 4,700 suspected cases of Zika since the virus, which originated in Africa, began sweeping through latin America last year.
Official estimates for number of cases is probably far too low, as per Julio Castro, a doctor at tropical medicine institute at Central University of Venezuela.
