Love in the Time of Dengue

Bolivia is currently undergoing the worst outbreak of dengue fever in its history. Tens of thousands have been infected by this mosquito-borne disease. Dozens have died. Symptoms - including headache, severe joint pain, bleeding, vomiting, rash and fever - are nasty, and painful enough to earn dengue the nickname "breakbone fever." This plague is basically raging out of control in lowland Cochabamba and the eastern Bolivian provinces, as the government lacks the recources for effective insect control. There is no vaccine and there is no effective cure, more than rest and rehydration. Most victims of the disease recover after an excruciating week or so of enduring the symptoms. Some do not. And the annual rainy season has not yet finished.

We in the city of Cochabamba have been spared only because the mosquitos cannot survive at this altitude (@ 2500 meters or 8000 feet). As the clinical facilities in the lowlands have become overwhelmed, a number of dengue sufferers have been brought to local hospitals here. It is eerie to think that Villa Tunari, the lovely tropical town we love to visit, only 3 to 4 hours from here by car, but thousands of feet lower, is suffering these horrors. We are on a high mountain island formed by the eastern slopes of the Andes, above the rising tide of this tropical illness, lapping at our city like an infected malefic sea. As global warming proceeds, the mosquito habitat will extend higher into the mountains, eventually including the residents of this high valley. Then Cochabamba will no longer be "above it all."

Refuge of any sort - from plagues, environmental desecration or political oppression - is increasingly difficult to find in this world. Does that mean we can no longer hide from our problems, but must face and deal with them?