Not only food the lack of it is also due to drugs for many Venezuelans take the arduous journey to Colombia. Illegal street pharmacies doing big business.
The market begins just behind the border bridge. A young woman holding a Blister with Paracetamol tablets high, 500 milligrams of, even these popular tablets there is in Venezuela, Yes. Even before the first stands will come with food, to Woo drug-seller, the Thousands of people who come on foot every day from Venezuela across in the Colombian border town of Cúcuta.
street pharmacist how to Ubaldo offering all kinds of tablets. But also drops, and injection solutions. “The Venezuelans can buy this medication, because in Venezuela it is very hard to get them, often there are none, and to be told if there is, then, inflated prices,” he said.
For more than a week on the Colombian-Venezuelan border aid deliveries. The military is not going to happen – in spite of the Appeals of interim President Guaidó.
Without packaging and without leaflet
The pills from the street pharmacy are comparatively cheap. But no one knows exactly what he buys here on the informal market of Cúcuta. Most of the tablets without packaging and, of course, without leaflets are offered. In the best case, the drugs are expired, in the worst case, counterfeit, adulterated, stretched.
Nevertheless, the doubts are selling medicines well – because they are cheap, cheaper than in regular pharmacies, and of course much cheaper than in Venezuela. 60 cents is the cost of 30 Paracetamol tablets, one-sixth of the usual pharmacies price in Colombia.
the use of vaccines lack of
The former health Minister Alejandro Gaviria speaks of a veritable Mafia, who sold fake drugs. But the shortage in Venezuela is too big, says Mary, who’s just come over the bridge: “There is not even more vaccines for newborns, a child needs. The mothers need to come here.”
And this is why people who are in urgent need of medication, on the arduous and quite dangerous way to Colombia. As Giovanni Plaza: “I am HIV-positive, in Venezuela, I almost died, because there was neither enough food nor drugs against the Virus.”
Also US President, Trump became involved in the conflict: At an event for Venezuelans in Miami, he called on the Venezuelan military, Guaidó.
hope he relies on the aid to arrive currently at the border. Here alone in Cúcuta three cargo planes have now landed. On Board: real medicines, hygiene items and food. “I wish with all my heart that you are doing something that you build, the country that you are sending this humanitarian aid, we really, really need,” says Giovanni.
