Argentina's health ministry announced on Monday five new confirmed cases of coronavirus, taking the total number to 17. All of them were described as imported cases since they involved people who arrived from overseas. They include a patient in Buenos Aires City, two from Chaco province, one from San Luis and the fifth in Patagonia Rio Negro province.
Argentina and Chile both said on Tuesday they had confirmed their first case of the novel coronavirus in patients who recently returned from travels. A 43-year-old infected Argentine man had returned from Italy on March 1, while a 33-year-old Chilean man had spent a month in southeast Asia.
Argentina's Health minister Gines Gonzalez García reported on Wednesday from Cordoba that the 21 cases of suspected Covid-19 finally proved negative and underlined that all protocols to face the epidemics are active and in place to try and contain any outbreak.
The Argentine government has started to implement additional controls to identify potential cases of coronavirus in flights from Italy, where the number of Covid-19 infections keeps increasing. Additionally, the first case confirmed in South America has been a Brazilian businessman who for work reasons visited the north of Italy.
Argentina and Chile signed on Tuesday in Santiago the creation of a bi-national entity responsible for the Las Leñas Pass tunnel project (Ebileñas) to be drilled in the Andes connecting the two countries.
Foreign minister Alfredo Moreno ratified Chilean support for Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands during a meeting with a delegation from Andean countries belonging to the “Solidarity Group with Malvinas”.
Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno regretted Argentina’s decision to end a double taxing agreement which was running since 1976 and exempts Chileans and Argentines making business in the neighbouring country from paying taxes as long as they are already contributors at home.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Argentine president Cristina Fernandez are expected to visit Chile in the near future as pressure mounts on the conservative government of President Sebastian Piñera because of the ongoing UK/Argentina diplomatic dispute over the Faklands/Malvinas issue.
A Chilean ‘Solidarity with Malvinas” group visited this week the Argentine legation in Santiago to meet Ambassador Ginés González Garcia and express their support for Argentina’s claim over the disputed Falklands and other South Atlantic islands.
Argentina announced its full support to make the tip of the South American continent ‘a free movement of peoples’ area’ that would include Chile’s Magallanes region in the extreme south of the country and Tierra del Fuego, shared by the neighbouring countries.