I'm not sure, South America in general is never effected by whatever happens in rest of the world. People in Asia/poorer countries are more prone to bacterial infections and our immune system is different that of Europeans, living in sub hygienic conditions has raised our natural immunity, less exposure to outside world also
Environment also but countries like Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus who have a similar environment to Italy are much less effected so how they handled it is also a factor.
I won't draw a pattern for it, it might change it's epicenter again and seeing how Iran who has a great health care system in Asia and they have faced SARS and MERS who have a freaking high fatality rate quite a times has been such badly effected by this.