I hate mosquitoes, more than anything, and when I kill one of them I don't suffer from any kind of Buddhist bent. On the contrary, I feel like I've done my fellow living beings a favor. I get a little flushed with pride when I've managed to smash one up against the wall and I hope that all its little friends' hearts are struck with fear by the sight of me and skedaddle out of my apartment. As of today my predatory skills are in high gear because with dengue fever spreading quickly through Argentina my fellow warm blooded creatures need my prowess more now than ever.
The first hint of dengue came to me during a wine tasting with a frumpy little Midwestern couple last weekend. While regaling us with their itinerary they mentioned their plans to fly to Iguazu Falls, near the Brazilian border, at which point the winemaker's eyes went wide and asked politely if she may make a statement: "Don't go there, wait a few months, there's a dengue outbreak". Not being very knowledgeable about dengue fever I looked it up and found that it's commonly referred to as 'worse than malaria'. The common symptoms are a high fever, a rash over most of your body, pain behind the eyes and a severe headache. If you're unlucky enough to develop dengue hemorrhagic fever you can suffer significant damage to your blood and lymph vessels, a decrease in platelets, bleeding from the eyes, mouth, nose and under the skin (?!) and death. But if you're a seriously unlucky bugger and contract dengue shock syndrome then forget about it, you may hope that death comes swift after suffering from these symptoms; plasma leakage, heavy bleeding, a sudden drop in blood pressure and death. (The mayo clinic keeps citing death as a symptom but is death really a symptom? It's not like you recover from death, it's more of an end result right?) Anyway, all three varieties are accompanied by severe abdominal pain, frequent vomiting, disorientation and the recovery isn't that much better, it includes a long period of listlessness, fatigue and depression.
During the writing of this post I've spotted two more mosquitoes and I'm beginning to seriously lament the fact that I only got a yellow fever shot before I left England. As of today dengue has spread to Buenos Aires, a feat never accomplished by the tropical disease before, and it's gotten so severe in another city, Cordoba, that it's currently being fumigated... the entire city!
Parents, if you read this, maybe you could help me pay for traveler's insurance because I don't think I'll be allowed anywhere near a plane if I'm bleeding from my eyes.
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