CHILE: The Flu Spreads

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Chile's epidemic of Asian influenza last week raised its death toll to almost one for each thousand stricken. On one day alone, some 200 deaths were reported. Funeral homes sold out their coffins, and queues waited in cemeteries with their dead while laborers dug graves. Total deaths by week's end: 600. out of 700,000 cases—a bleak preview of what may happen in the U.S. when the disease arrives this fall (TIME, Aug. 12).

In Santiago, the new cases were described by doctors as increasingly serious. Said one: "We have no explanation as yet. but it seems that the virus is now stronger than the previous week." Abandoning their now ineffective treatment of aspirin or linden-flower potion, health officials fought the virus, identified as "Japan 305," with such antibiotics as streptomycin and achromycin.

Even aging (79) but vigorous President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo was sick,* his throat inflamed from an attack of the flu. Also down: Jorge Torreblanca, the Minister of Health.