Juan Carlos is a 39-year-old man from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas who has been living with HIV for more than a decade. Juan Carlos arrived in Colombia in February. Juan Carlos said that there are food shortages in Venezuela and people have died because of a lack of medications. Venezuela’s worsening economic and political crisis has prompted Juan Carlos and more than 4 million other Venezuelans to leave the country in recent years. The U.N. Refugee Agency in June said 1,408,055 Venezuelan migrants and refugees are living in Colombia,.
The New York-based Aid for AIDS International estimates more than 10,000 Venezuelans with HIV have left the country in recent years. Service providers in Caracas and other Venezuelan cities say Venezuelans with HIV/AIDS have died because of the lack of available antiretroviral drugs.
One of the main challenges that Colombian service providers face is that many Venezuelans with HIV do not know their status when they arrive in Colombia. Red Somos, a Bogotá-based HIV/AIDS service organization, provides rapid HIV tests to Venezuelan migrants in the city. Franco Aguilar, a Red Somos staffer who was born in Venezuela, says the organization also provides their Venezuelan clients with psychological care and helps them with their asylum cases. Red Somos Director Miguel Ángel Barriga told the Blade that the organization has had “difficulties” obtaining medications for the Venezuelans with HIV.
Andrés Cardona, a consultant for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, noted that Venezuelans who are registered in Colombia can access the country’s public health system. Cardona, like many of the Colombian HIV/AIDS service providers with whom the Blade spoke, acknowledged many Venezuelan migrants with HIV do not have access to treatment, in part, because access they don’t know their status.
Low-cost HIV tests are available in Medellín, but Cardona conceded some Venezuelan migrants cannot afford them. Cardona noted a public hospital in a working-class neighborhood in Medellín offers treatment to Venezuelan migrants with HIV once they know their status.
When asked whether the Colombian government can do more to help Venezuelans with HIV, Cardona said the situation is “a bit delicate.” Cardona added the influx of Venezuelan migrants into Colombia “caught us by surprise.” “We were not prepared,” he said. Read more via Washington Blade