Milenio V.A- INGLÉS-Actividad para 4to año Nivel Intermedio

A)Read the text carefully and translate into Spanish.
B)Write five questions about paragraph number two and answer them in Spanish.
C)Surf the net and look for information about preventive measures taken by the government.

DEADLINE: October 26th

A writer reports from the dengue epidemic in Argentina, where locals are asking hard questions of government and exploring a wide-reaching approach to prevention.



When I traveled to Argentina in April to investigate the little-known Latin American Chagas disease, I was greeted at immigration by posters of super-sized mosquitoes hovering around the words, Dengue: Podemos Prevenirlo (Dengue: We can Prevent it.) In the days to come, my trip’s initial purpose was overshadowed by encounters with the worst dengue epidemic in the country’s history: By mid-May the National Ministry of Health put the total number of reported cases in Argentina at more than 23,000. Dengue teach-ins were being held at the University of Buenos Aires, tourist kiosks were passing out brochures warning against travel to the affected northern provinces, and each night the evening news chronicled the gruesome “firsts”—the country’s first cases of dengue passed from a mother to her unborn child, the first cases of the virulent hemorrhagic fever, the first deaths.

The alarm was understandable. Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne infection that causes a severe flu-like illness with two potentially lethal complications: hemorrhagic fever and shock. It’s sometimes called “breakbone fever” for its excruciating pain. Although a new vaccine is being tested in Thailand and early medical attention can quicken recovery, there is no treatment or vaccine for dengue. And unlike many of its neighbors, Argentina has a mild climate and a robust public health infrastructure, which have largely spared the country from the disease. In 1998, for example, neighboring Brazil reported 535,388 cases of dengue, while Argentina had only 822. The country reported its worst outbreak before the current one, in 2004, with 3,284 cases.


From "Battling Dengue in Argentina"
Global Trends / by Carol Lloyd / May 28, 2009