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I'm totally terrified by this thing right now because my wife is pregnant. There's tons of mosquitoes here in Venezuela . She already got Haemorrhagic Dengue a
by rafaelm 11y ago
I'm totally terrified by this thing right now because my wife is pregnant. There's tons of mosquitoes here in Venezuela . She already got Haemorrhagic Dengue about 10 months ago.
The worst part is that because of the terrible state of the economy here, there's no insect repellent in the stores and no proper Zika test kits in the hospitals. The sanitary situation here is getting worse everyday (constant shortage of food and medicine).
Add to that the constant politization of everything, the govt hasn't even issued any infection figures or warnings.
I had to ask a friend coming from the US to bring some DEET repellent. But not everyone has the same opportunity.
- theklub 11y agoMan that's terrible. Just curious, why can't you order it online?
- pjc50 11y agoBecause Amazon is in Brazil, not Venezuela. (Joking aside, Venezuela has a quasi-command economy with foreign exchange controls; this results in a shortage of imported goods and it may be prohibitively expensive to do a personal import)
- hobs 11y agoWhat about a personal package being sent? If it would help a guy from having his pregnant wife getting some insane fever, I could ship him a box of DEET stuff.
- rafaelm 11y agoThere are a lot of forwarding services here that let you buy stuff online, have it sent to a US address and then they send it to you in Venezuela. I actually do some occasional work for one such company. Also, since so many venezuelans are leaving the country, lots of people living in Panama and the US are sending stuff to their friends and family in the country using these companies. The shipping and taxes are expensive sometimes but it's an alternative at least.
- rafaelm 11y agoAs pjc50 said, we have a foreign exchange control that restricts the amount of dollars you can buy in a year. It used to be $300 per year, but now it's practically zero because the govt has not authorized it yet. I've got some (very) small savings in dollars from some grunt jobs I do every now and then online and I can buy some stuff like prenatal vitamins, repellent, etc.
- headShrinker 11y agoPermethrin is what the pros use. It's way better than DEET, and less dangerous. I've been using it for a while now to prevent ticks and have been really impressed with it's effectiveness. You apply it your cloths not directly on your skin.
- rafaelm 11y agoI'll definitely look in to that, thanks!
- jayess 11y agoOut of curiosity, what keeps you in Venezuela?
- rafaelm 11y agoI ask myself that every day , especially now with a baby coming. 150% inflation in 2015 from January to September. Food and medicine shortages. Huge lines to buy food, diapers, baby formula. Almost all of my closest friends have already left. I think about leaving every day. I am teaching myself programming and studying for CCNA , thinking that maybe I can get a job somewhere relatively quickly , even though I'm in my mid-thirties and have limited experience in those areas.
- markdown 11y agoThis is a first-world question, if there ever was one :) The answer: the same thing that keeps everyone outside the first-world in their place... the inability to get a visa to greener pastures.