Argentine healthcare experts in the Buenos Aires area said this weekend that medical wards were on the brink of collapse given the number of people seeking attention with symptoms of influenza or other respiratory diseases such as influenza A or pneumonia. At the same time, they encouraged the population to get vaccinated against the flu because coverage this year was below 40% while cases went up by 15% from 2023.
With the outbreak of Avian flu H5N1 in Minnesota, Midwest state bordering Canada, the number of infected cattle in the United States confirmed has reached over eighty animals across some eleven states. Besides Minnesota the other states with infected cattle include, South Dakota, New Mexico, Michigan, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Colorado and North Carolina.
Health teams from Montevideo's City Council will start canvassing the Uruguayan capital from Monday through Friday with mobile vaccination units to foster immunization against influenza and also Covid-19. The initiative comes at a time of high circulation of respiratory viruses, it was explained.
Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora held a meeting with his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin on the sides of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) during which both leaders agreed on joint undertakings in the South American country regarding lithium battery production in addition to discussing other bilateral topics of interest.
A 59-year-old man in Mexico was reported Wednesday to be the first person ever to die of avian flu A(H5N2), the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on its website about the patient who passed away on April 24. The source of exposure to the virus usually circulating in poultry remains unknown and the victim had no history of contact with these animals.
Health authorities in the Brazilian flood-hit State of Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul confirmed Monday that an eighth patient had died of leptospirosis, Agencia Brasil reported. The victim was a 31-year-old man from São Leopoldo who had prolonged exposure to contaminated water.
A dead humpback whale was found by a group of bypassers on the beach shores of the exclusive Argentine resort of Pinamar The causes of the death of the young mammal weighing approximately 15 tons are yet to be determined by experts in the Province of Buenos Aires, it was reported.
Brazil tops the list of suspected dengue cases in the region with 6.3 of them, followed by Argentina's 420,000, Paraguay's 257,000, and Peru's 200,000, Agencia Brasil reported Monday. In South America's largest country, more than 3 million of these notifications have yielded positive laboratory results.
Argentine President Javier Milei rounded up his Californian trip after a meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and was headed for El Salvador for Nayib Bukele's new inauguration aboard the ARG-01 Boeing 757.
Chile's Acting Health Minister Andrea Albagli insisted Monday that there was no lagging in the government's flu vaccination campaign. She made those remarks after politicians from the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) tried to link an alleged shortcoming in this regard to five deaths due to that malady in the Ñuble region in the past few days and even hinted she should resign. I don't know what failure they are talking about, Albagli stressed.