Caracas, Apr 6 (EFE).– The scarcity of clean water and personal hygiene products has increased the cases of scabies, malaria, diarrhea and amoebiasis in Venezuela, the director of epidemiology with the central state of Miranda’s health department warned on Wednesday.

“The lack of access to a constant supply of good-quality water brings with it, as a consequence, an increase in diarrhetic syndromes because there is less water for cleaning food and utensils,” Miguel Viscuña said in comments cited by the opposition coalition MUD.

The physician also said that the storing of water in homes carries the risk of increasing disease vectors such as the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which – he added – has modified its habits and “has become an indoor creature,” a situation that is seen reflected in the increase of dengue, Zika and Chikungunya.

“If the scarcity of (clean) water … added to the scanty access to personal hygiene products … is causing outbreaks for us of dermatological diseases such as scabies,” Viscuña said.

The incidence of infectious diseases that “until recently were more or less under control” has increased because “in the schools, the children are not required to change their school uniforms as frequently and (thus, they) use less soap and detergent” to keep them clean, he said.

“Regarding electricity, with more (power outages) the coldness of biological products (i.e. vaccines) in the freezers of the clinics cannot be guaranteed. When the temperature goes (up), they become unusable or lose their effectiveness,” said Viscuña, emphasizing that Venezuela has returned “to epidemiological contexts that were overcome in the 1950s.” EFE