453,599 operations on non-working days, 146 doctors from unauthorised or unaccredited universities: Paraguay's 2026 audit of how medical degrees were registered

Paraguay registers every university degree with the Ministry of Education and Science (MEC); an unregistered title cannot be used to obtain a health registration or a public post. Programmes must be authorised by the Consejo Nacional de Educación Superior (Cones) and, in health, accredited by the agency Aneaes. In 2026, after a former senator was convicted over a forged law degree, the Senate created a special commission on fake titles and asked the Contraloría General de la República (CGR) to audit the system. The findings matter to anyone planning to study medicine in the country.

According to ABC Color (30 September 2026), which obtained the CGR's preliminary report, auditors found 453,599 activity records on the MEC's higher-education information system on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays between 2023 and 2026, linked to 352 user accounts, with no authorisations or work orders to justify them. Auditors also found 7,373 records whose identity data did not match the civil registry, including ID numbers of deceased Paraguayans used in files of foreign students. On health, ABC reported that the MEC had validated and registered diplomas even though hospital-practice certificates lacked the required signatures.

ABC's 3 October report said one audit observation concerned medical degrees registered in 2023 for a private university's Pedro Juan Caballero campus whose hospital-practice certificates lacked the signatures of the health centres and the mandatory seals. On 4 October ABC quoted Jorge Rodas, former president of the Círculo Paraguayo de Médicos, who called the missing signatures a documentary irregularity and said the more serious problem was simulated clinical practice at sites with too few patients for the students assigned to them. The current president, Osvaldo Paniagua, said Cones had kept approving medical schools without the technical requirements for clinical placements. ABC reported that the MEC receives hour records from universities but does not verify that internships took place. Última Hora (22 October 2026) reported Contralor Camilo Benítez telling a press conference that more than 850 medicine or health-related careers lacked Aneaes habilitation or quality certification and that 146 doctors had graduated from universities that were not authorised or not accredited. Hoy (22 October) reported that a first cut of 34,068 records had found 1,090 degrees held by 1,082 officials in 35 state bodies with no backing at the issuing institutions, and that the files went to the Fiscalía. La Nación (23 October) reported Benítez estimating the total could reach 5,000 once the remaining institutions reported.

The failure the auditors describe is a registry that recorded what universities sent without checking it: hours, signatures, seals, even whether the student had been enrolled. Benítez told La Nación there was not a single known case of Cones issuing a sanction, closure or intervention, and that the MEC had not exercised due diligence when registering titles.

For a prospective student the test is simple. Before paying a Paraguayan medical faculty, check on the Cones and Aneaes sites that the specific programme and campus are authorised and accredited, and ask where clinical rotations happen and who signs them off. A registered title is not proof that the training behind it was real.