Frontera NorteSur September-October 2003

Five percent of reported domestic abuse victims in Nuevo Laredo are men, thirty percent are children and the remainder are women, according to José Rafael Pérez Escobar, an official with Tamaulipas' sex crimes and family-violence unit. Pérez says he receives between four and six cases of abused men per month. 

In most cases, abused men file charges related to their injuries, threats of violence and illegal entry, Pérez said. 

Pérez believes that only half of all men report partner abuse of which they are they victim. He says this is because men are embarrassed to report such a crime. 

"When a husband is assaulted by his wife, he prefers to put up with it and not file charges out of embarrassment that other men will laugh at him because in the north men are characterized as being very macho . . ." Pérez stated. 

In cases where a man files charges against his partner, the police open an investigation to obtain information and evidence from the victim and the aggressor. Later, they evaluate their findings to see if someone can be found responsible for the abuse. 

Source: El Mañana (Nuevo Laredo), September 29, 2003. Article by Marco Antonio Martínez. 

West Nile Virus Infects El Paso and Ciudad Juárez

On September 3, 2003, El Paso's Department of Health confirmed 19 cases of West Nile virus in the city, said Jorge Magaña, director of El Paso's Department of Health. Magaña also noted that another 14 people may have the disease but West Nile virus has not yet been confirmed in their cases. 

A few days earlier, an 84-year old man that had the disease died in El Paso. However, the exact cause of death in the case has not been determined as the man had other medical conditions besides West Nile virus. 

An eleven-year old boy who recently had a kidney transplant is also reporting symptoms of the disease. However, Magaña stated that his case had not yet been confirmed. 

From a public health standpoint, Magaña is worried about extracurricular activities at local schools. He says that mosquitoes are most active in the hours after school. "We've already put this situation before the schools," he said. 

So far in 2003, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control, 21 people across the US have died from West Nile virus and an estimated 1,400 people have been infected. 

Two Ciudad Juárez residents have also been confirmed with the disease. One lives in the city center and the other in the Club Campestre neighborhood, a very wealthy part of Cd. Juárez. Both people work in El Paso and have been receiving treatment there. 

A third case in Cd. Juárez that seemed similar to West Nile virus was confirmed as Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Guillain-Barré is a disease of unknown origin that causes paralysis. However, Cd. Juárez health officials are examining the case closely to see if it is not perhaps West Nile virus. 

Source: El Diario (Ciudad Juárez), September 4, 2003. Article by María Clara Valencia.

Chihuahua: Second Highest Female Murder Rate in Mexico

During a time when state law enforcement officials have been accusing women's activist groups of exaggerating the number of murdered women in the state, a new federal study found Chihuahua to be the Mexican state with the second highest murder rate for women in 2001. In that year, the average murder rate for women in Mexico was 2.6 per 100,000 women, according to a Secretariat of Health study entitled "Muertes por violencia en las mujeres de México" (Death by Violence among Mexican Women).

Although the state of Mexico had the highest murder rate (5.3) of all Mexico's states, Chihuahua was second with 4.7 murders per 100,000 women.  

Nationwide, nearly 33% of murdered Mexican women were killed by gunshots, the leading cause of violent death. Stab wounds killed 15.7% of female violent-crime victims in 2001 and were the second-leading cause of violent death among women. Strangulation and suffocation accounted for 15.0% of female violent deaths. 

The Mexican state of Quintana Roo had the highest rate of domestic abuse against women (30%) in 2001 while Aguascalientes had the lowest (12%). 

Blanca Rico Galindo, general director of the Secretariat's Women and Health Program, stated that dental cavities are the only health problem more common among Mexican women than physical abuse. 

Sources: El Diario, August 4, 2003. Article by Pablo Hernández Batista. 
"Muertes por violencia en las mujeres de México," Secretaría de Salud. 

Dengue Outbreak Strikes Sonora, Baja California Sur and Sinaloa

A nine-year old girl in the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo has died from Dengue hemorrhagic fever. Dengue hemorrhagic fever is a more severe form of dengue, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The mosquito-transmitted disease has also appeared in Baja California Sur and Sinaloa. 

Francisco Muro Dávila, assistant director of Health Services in Sonora, said that the state has had 167 confirmed cases of dengue this year and 15 of theses cases were dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). 

Baja California Sur has reported 1,319 suspected cases of dengue of which 147 are DHF. Officials there say the outbreak would have been worse if not for the intervention of more than 1,000 members of the armed forces and healthcare workers. Rainy weather is too blame for much of the disease's spread.

Although no figures on the extent of the outbreak in Sinaloa were provided in an article in the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario, it is stated that five people sick with DHF are being hidden in a room or wing in Mazatlán's General Hospital. According to the article, these five patients do not appear among official disease statistics provided by Sinaloa's Secretariat of Health. 

The last dengue outbreak was in 1997 when 4,000 cases were registered. However, only five of them were DHF. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, "the principal symptoms of dengue are high fever, severe headache, backache, joint pains, nausea and vomiting, eye pain, and rash. Generally, younger children have a milder illness than older children and adults."

Dengue hemorrhagic fever is described by the CDC as, "a fever that lasts from 2 to 7 days, with general signs and symptoms that could occur with many other illnesses (e.g., nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and headache). This stage is followed by hemorrhagic manifestations, tendency to bruise easily or other types of skin hemorrhages, bleeding nose or gums, and possibly internal bleeding. The smallest blood vessels (capillaries) become excessively permeable (“leaky”), allowing the fluid component to escape from the blood vessels. This may lead to failure of the circulatory system and shock, followed by death, if circulatory failure is not corrected."

With good medical care, the mortality rate for DHF can be held to less than 1%, according to the CDC. 

A vaccine for the disease is seen to be 5-10 years away. 

Sources: El Diario (Cd. Juárez), October 1, 2003.  http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/dengue/index.htm

Tijuana Fights Illegal Waste Dumps

In an effort to beautify Tijuana and reduce health risks, city government has embarked on a process to cleanup illegal garbage dumps and end their use. 

To aid in the cleanup of unregulated waste sites, the city has decentralized solid waste management and acquired new equipment. On Mondays through Fridays, sanitation workers run regular, garbage-pickup routes throughout the city. On Saturdays, workers dedicate themselves to removing waste from Tijuana's illegal dumps. 

To end residents' practice of throwing garbage in empty areas, the city has increased fines against polluters. It has also been running a media campaign known as "Vamos a Limpiar Tijuana" (Let's Cleanup Tijuana). 

Martín Dávila Echeverría, director of the Department of Sanitation and City Maintenance, says that illegal dumps come in many sizes. Some are small, taking up no more than a street corner. Others are larger, like the sides of hills or empty fields. The worst dumps are large canyons that are being filled with waste. 

Despite the city's efforts, the number of known illegal dump sites have increased over the past fourteen months. In July 2002, Dávila's department found 120 unregulated waste disposal areas throughout the city. By September 2003, this number had increased to 131. 

Dávila states that the problem of illegal waste disposal is hard to combat because for years residents have been in the habit of improperly disposing of garbage. This has created what he refers to as a vicious cycle in which the city cleans a field and then residents refill it with waste. 

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), September 30, 2003. Article by Manuel de Jesús Villegas.