July 8, 2009
Tomorrow is Argentina’s Independence Day, a national holiday, but the country has already been shutting down due to hyper panic over the swine flu (or gripe A).
Friends Day, July 20, is coming, but I’m really worried. The Argentine hug is in danger of disappearing. Que tragedia!
Each year, two million children worldwide die from diarrhea that could have been cured with an oral serum costing about fifteen cents, writes Carlos Alberto Morales Paitán, pediatric doctor at Children’s Hospital in Lima, Perú. But his email, which reached me via Argentine friends, was not about that too common tragedy.
It was about the epidemic of mass hysteria here in Argentina over the swine flu. People are walking around in surgical masks, schools have been closed, events canceled (including the International Conference on Tango Therapy, around which I planned my year), and the government and many people are acting as if the bubonic plague has returned. They either don’t know they are dupes or don’t care—some quarters like an alibi for closing up shop.
Roche and Relenze who silently rubbed their palms together when the bird flu (avian flu) caused similar panic, are waiting in the wings (bad pun, sorry). Or the pig sty, I should say. Their Tamiflu vaccine, despite not having had remarkable efficacy, raked in the bucks, making a killing (there I go again) in Asia.
The bird flu killed 250 people in the entire world. Yes, 250 people in a 10-year period, 25 victims per year. La gripe A’s casualties are so far at about that rate, maybe a little higher. The common flu, on the other hand kills half a million people each year throughout the world. Pneumonia, a curable illness with cheap vaccines, causes the death of 10 million people in the world each year. And the media does not inform you of those. You do the rest of the dot connecting.
So, with these faux precautions thrust upon us, I’m getting fewer hugs and here I boasted about Why Argentines are not so hot on Valentine’s Day—because July 20, Dia Del Amigo is their big day for celebrating love. I’m sure there are enough lucid people around to celebrate without this silly charade of macro-microbia-phobia.
Hugs and kisses to all.
The government certainly did not make a fuss when there was an epidemic of meningitis in 2007-2008. Sadly a number of children died or were left with brain damage.
No hubo tal epidemia de meningitis. Joli, ya no sabés que inventar, seguro sos empleada del grupo Clarín o una agroexplotadora.
My brother got infected with H1N1 or Swine Flu in Mexico. He got a mild fever and luckily he did not die.
i think that in asian countries the Swine Flu did not spread rapidly compared to those countries that are located in colder climates. we should still be very thankful that the swine flu did not cause massive infections.
2 of my cousins in mexico got infected with the swine flu virus. thank God, they recovered well. it is a great news that the pandemic on swine flu is gone now.
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