Chile Forum

An intern where my husband works has kids that attend the first school where cases were reported and her son was at the house of one of the kids recently. They suspended her internship until further notice.

16 cases confirmed tonight.

..

Hack Hack

I'll tell you the deal on May 29 ………… assuming "Hotel" Thorax quarantine ward has free wifi.

No symptoms yet, but only been since Sunday when my trip to LAX terminated with that sniffling coughing couple next to me.

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:. . . . only been since Sunday . . . .

Is it true that the dread disease requires an incubation two weeks long?

Santiago radio News as of Wednesday 20th

--------------START----------------
Confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1 reached 16 in Chile, Chilean Health Minister Alvaro Erazo said on Wednesday, adding that all patients were receiving treatment and in good conditions.

Among the infections, 12 were linked to a student at the San Nicholas School in the capital Santiago. Three were women who arrived in Chile on Saturday from the Dominican Republic. There was also an isolated case at another Santiago educational institution.

Erazo told reporters "We are in the initial phase where there is, on one hand, the presence of travelers arriving with cases which are confirmed and on the other, groups of outbreaks in isolated communities,"

"So far, the initial phase allows us to say we are still in good shape to contain the outbreak," he added.

Health authorities are still testing 11 samples from the port city of Valparaiso, and another from Linares in the south.
-------------FINISH-----------------

Last night the news reported 25 confirmed cases. There was also about dozen school closures.

They followed that news by covering the Jonas Brothers concert at the main stadium with a million screaming teenage girls. Where there are teenage girls, there are teenage boys, and ... Well, you get the epidemic picture. I would say by this time next week we should have a fairly complete dispersion through the school system.

I am starting to see some very misleading reports around the wires about how Chile now has the highest confirmed cases in South America of H1N1.

Which, strictly speaking is true. We do have the highest "confirmed" cases for one simple reason, Chile has it's own labs. I believe they are reporting testing takes hours not days for confirming cases of the flu in Chile.

Everyone else is either too big to test (e.g. Brazil and Argentina) everyone or are sending their samples somewhere else (CDC in the States), or both. Their reporting times are lagging badly. Now they are moving from simply days to weeks for testing because those labs are overwhelmed with request from around the World. Even Mexico is still sending samples to the CDC.

I however have a very hard time believing that for example Guatemala with the free flow of traffic over the boarder only has like one or two confirmed cases. I seen a report that the first confirmed case was an old lady in a remote mountain town, and I happen to know the town from when I lived there. If someone in that town has the flu, the entire highlands of Guatemala has been exposed because of the way people are packed in to buses like sardines to travel the Panamerican highway in Guatemala. It would likly take as little as a day for a flu to be spread across Guatemala via the bus system. Doctors are lucky if they have basic antibiotics in those towns, let alone anything as sophisticated as Tamiflu.

Brazil and Argentina have way way bigger international flows of travelers than Chile.

Anyone that knows anything about the rest of Latin America knows the corruption, poverty, lack of resources, big populations, make it almost impossible to trust the numbers coming out of those countries for anything let alone something as potentially economically and politically damaging as H1N1 flu.

So, Chile just happens to have a health system that so far seems to be able to keep up with the monitoring. I can guarantee you that Chile in no way shape or form has the largest number of cases, just the largest number of confirmed cases.

Just talked via Skype to a Chile cell. Surprisingly good connection.

From what I heard, at least I won't be the first to bring the infection to the San Antonio area as they've already closed a school in cuico Santo Domingo due to the new human-swine-avian, probably lab manufactured flu virus.

No symptoms yet. Time to take another preventive dosing of Vitamin C & D.

Don't forget the preventative alcohol
Re the Skype to cell, how does the cellphone surcharge work out?

Skype to Chile cell, a little over USD 21¢/minute.

I found a Skype in USA to Chile cell much clearer than a Skype in Chile to Chile cell.

Alcohol? I heard if you drink 5 litros in an hour you will probably die. Therefore, all alcohol, for any application is hazardous. Where is the FDA in this matter?

This is the cytokine storm where a very efficient and working immune system launches an attack on the virus infecting the lungs and suffocates the victim.

So if infected and you are entering the cytokine storm stage, the key is to temporarily weaken the immune system in some way. The ultimate, with no specialized meds desperate measure would be to down 100g of sugar or take shots of alcohol.

Prevention strategies still hold. Better never to get into a cytokine storm position in the first place.

Alcohol? I heard if you drink 5 litros in an hour you will probably die. Therefore, all alcohol, for any application is hazardous.

"Where is the FDA in this matter?"

We should be told!