The constant blackouts that last up to six hours a day damage the prophylaxis treatment (factor VIII) for hemophiliac patients in the Guárico State, because it must be kept refrigerated.
Pedro Izzo // Correspondent lapatilla.com
Manuelbys Pereira, representative of the Venezuelan Association for Hemophilia (AVH) in Guárico State, explained the complications that some patients and their families suffer to avoid breaking the treatment’s cold chain.
“This treatment must remain well refrigerated and cannot lose its temperature, since this lowers its quality. But now we have power outages of four, five and even six hours a day, with repeated brownouts. This affects the refrigerators and, in turn, the treatment,” said Pereira, who is the mother of a child with hemophilia.
“In the case of my son, he has prophylaxis, which is an inter-day dose, I have realized that he is not reacting as he should, because the treatment has already been warmed up and I have had to buy ice to maintain it in an icebox, but when I’m not at home, the treatment stays there and gets hot,” Pereira said.
For his part, Giovanny Marota commented on his difficulties as a hemophiliac patient in the face of blackouts.
“The power cuts for us who have high-cost treatments and that we need to keep at a very low temperature, between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, cause the loss of effectiveness of factor 8, which is what I use in my case.“
Marota stressed that he sometimes makes use of an icebox and enough ice to guarantee factor 8 refrigeration; although when the power cut is prolonged for more than 4 hours, the panorama is less encouraging: “The medicine gets damaged and is not effective in the organism,” he lamented.
The representative of the AVH in this plains state urged the Corpoelec authorities to comply with a rationing schedule, since, according to what she said, power cuts occur without prior notice during the day and this puts the health of people with hemophilia at risk.