Foreign medical equipment developed abroad was quickly adopted and shipped to Venezuela with most of the country's medical goods needing to be imported. In 1980, Venezuela imported 47% of its medical goods from the United States, 13% from Germany, 8% from Japan, and 3% from the United Kingdom. The majority of the medical equipment was distributed by a conglomerate of about 45 distributors known as the Asociación Venezolana de Distribuidores de Equipos Medicos (AVEDEM), while 15% of medical products were distributed by smaller entities.
