A Developing Epidemic in Argentina :: Buenos Aires Journalism Influenza Health Essays

A Developing Epidemic in ArgentinaBUENOS AIRES, Argentina--December is champion of the loveliest times of year in the southern cerebral hemisphere of South America. On a typical summer day on a warm, Sunday afternoon, residents of Buenos Aires enjoy a relaxing jaunt on the Avenida de Mayo where one can browse the numerous shops of rare antiquities or simply retire to drinking tea in front of one of the some cafes a farseeing the avenue. Families with boisterous children picnic within the many human race parks and gardens and bask in the warm sun. Expecting to revel in the long days of summer, I was surprised to find that these scenes that danced in my memory, while fighting sea-sickness en route, seduce vanished along with the citizens of Buenos Aires. The streets of the city are quiet, day and night. This royal South American city with its traditional colonial origins and its progressive embracement of contemporaneousness has become a ghost town of fear, fear of the ill ness that U.S. citizens go to bed as the Spanish Influenza. According the local authorities, the origins of Influenza was brought by ships locomotion from North American ports to Buenos Aires. Currently, port authorities have been cautious with the adit of foreign vessels and have established a quarantine period precedent to entry. U.S. clipper ships the Elsie and the Snowdon, along with the steamer, the Royston Grange of Edinburgh have been subject to this quarantine which not lonesome(prenominal) limits their admission into port, but also places an embargo on certain putrescible goods. These actions have provided dire consequences for the local economy. Because of a lack of foreign goods, many dock workers are jobless along with local merchants facing scarcities which have greatly inflated the price of certain foods. While this is a respectable economic situation, authorities of Buenos Aires feel justified in their restrictions and cite watercourse statistics related t o the spread of flu. As of last Monday, the civil registry in Buenos Aires reported that in one district, as many as 192 deaths from influenza occurred just on that day. Because of this large amount of death, the local cemetery was otiose to offer proper burials to 155 of those victims. City leaders are germ to realize that preventative methods are the best means of defense against influenza. ordinary address messages about personal hygiene are published in papers and broadcast on the radio.