Venezuela and Russia evaluate genetic techniques for early diagnosis to strengthen collective health - MPPRE

Venezuela and Russia evaluate genetic techniques for early diagnosis to strengthen collective health

The People’s Power Minister for Science and Technology, Gabriela Jiménez-Ramírez, assured that the nations of the world are working to promote early diagnosis studies to evaluate genetic predisposition to certain diseases such as cancer.

During the XXIV Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (Spief), she explained that they reviewed and commented on genetic techniques in clinical diagnosis and therapeutic treatments to strengthen the collective health of the country.

Delegación de Venezuela asiste al XXIV Foro Económico de San Petersburgo

“All these genetic techniques are being used in prenatal and postnatal diagnosis, as well as in those people who have a family condition, such as cancer for example. Healthy people also undergo complete genomic sequencing studies, and this allows us to establish those indicators that may develop cancer or heart disease. The offer of the industry is to expand all these services to different clinical scales and, simultaneously, the pharmaceutical industry: gene therapy”, she pointed out.

The Head of the Venezuelan scientific portfolio indicated that the discussion focuses on how States should leverage these technological services to improve public health.

“Beside the advantages of genetic diagnosis technologies, from Venezuela, we insist on the need to address health in a comprehensive manner. Environmental factors, nutritional factors, stress, that is, ways and conditions of life must be taken into account. Depending on the habits, some diseases develop. Health is covered in a comprehensive way, not only on the genetic side”, she said.

For the minister, it is necessary and very important to know the methylation status of certain genes in populations, because this would allow establishing response patterns to certain therapies and would provide valuable information on the development of some diseases.

“Scientific evidence reports that DNA methylation can condition the development of some types of breast cancer. This serves as a tool to study these cancers in women. In the end, it is the early diagnostic techniques, the sequencing techniques, which allow us to predict these scenarios; we must study how to accompany from the clinical point of view and from the industry. Bring personalized health to collective health”, she emphasized.

Everyone’s responsibility

The Minister for Science and Technology, Gabriela Jiménez-Ramírez, stressed that the nations debated the enormous need to fortify health promotion, which, according to the WHO, “is the process that allows people to increase control over their health”.

“Health is not only a State’s responsibility. Health promotion allows citizens to empower themselves to have the best follow-up and control of their well-being. They should not wait to feel bad, they should not wait to be sick, but to be educated and genuinely concerned about their health; it is an exercise in conscience that must be accompanied by a series of public policies”, she said.

Minister Jiménez-Ramírez added that Venezuela’s participation in the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, in Russia, serves to establish relationships that allow the empowerment of technologies that can strengthen the health policy of the Bolivarian nation.