Masks, Public Health Tents, and Sweeping Closures

That is what swine flu in Bolivia looks like (here called Influenza A). About 100 cases have been reported here, mainly in Santa Cruz. There is a full-blown panic here that to a certain extent overlaps what occurred in the U.S. yet with local particularities and concerns. Overall, it appears that the [...]

A Constant in Bolivian Bioscience…

Is the lack of reagents (“reactivos” in Spanish) for conducting experiments. Delicate, temperature sensitive reagents get caught up in customs and expire or they never arrive, or the tramites don’t go through to purchase necessary supplies. Often it is difficult to obtain the same brand and type of reagents, so researchers have to [...]

Urine Therapy and Home Remedies

I want to follow up on Kate’s brief post on this story about the woman who died in rural Santa Cruz after allegedly being injected with urine.  I agree with Kate that part of the press attention to this case is due to the fact that the women involved appear to be urban and middle-class, [...]

More coverage, more of the same?

Is it just my impression, or has there been an increase in English-language coverage on Bolivia over the past 6 months? Not only was there the long piece in the New York Times’ Travel Supplement in the Fall (post is below), but there was a recent front-page article on Bolivia’s lithium [...]

Cuban kharisiris?

Ok, sort of a cheap-shot provocative title to get ya’ll to read this. But that doesn’t change the content of the long article published in Wednesday’s La Razón.
A young woman from Oruro, Beatriz, who three years ago obtained a scholarship to a Cuban medical school, died while abroad. Her parents were told that [...]