Last week, several headlines in different newspapers (El Tiempo, Vanguardia, El País), warned about the emergence of a disease not yet well identified that has killed five children in an indigenous community of the department of Chocó, on the pacific coast of Colombia. Since then, the Ministry of Health confirmed the deaths in a tweet, but all the focus was on the coronavirus.
The last child who died was barely a year and a half, and they all belonged to the wounaan indigenous community of Colombian Bajo Baudó. 185 children are being treated in a community of just 1,500 inhabitants, and no one can confirm the cause or origin of this infection. With pictures of diarrhea, vomiting, respiratory complications and fever, this possible epidemic would not bear similarities with the attention received by the coronavirus that is affecting China, and that is now spreading everywhere.
The coronavirus has already left more than 630 deaths around the world. It has been declared an international emergency by the WHO and the city of Wuhan in China, the focus of the epidemic, reacted late to isolate it, even though it built a hospital with 1,000 beds in 10 days, for a virus whose lethality is still unknown in its true dimension.
