swine flu strain outbreak could be village near pig farm
Jason P
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS and LISE OLSEN
April 28, 2009, 10:52PM
MEXICO CITY - A village near a massive corporate hog farm partially owned by
the largest U.S. pork producer is one of three possible sources of Mexico's
swine flu outbreak, the Mexican government's top epidemiologist confirmed
Tuesday.
A 4-year-old boy who fell ill April 2 in the village of La Gloria, in the
mountains some 200 miles east of the Mexican capital, tested positive for
the new flu strain, said Miguel Angel Lezana, chief of the government's
national epidemiology center said.
The boy, Edgar Hernandez, recovered. And tests in U.S. and Canadian
government labs of samples taken from other La Gloria residents - a third of
the villagers were stricken - showed the others were hit by a human flu
strain, Lezana said.
But a 39-year-old female census taker, who fell ill at about the same time
as the Hernandez child, died in the city of Oaxaca on April 12. She was
confirmed to have been killed by the same flu strain the boy had.
Two others were sickened by the same strain about the same time in and near
San Diego, Calif. - another possible source, he added.
"It's impossible" that the three outbreaks of the same strain could have
almost simultaneously taken place in isolation of one another," Lezana said.
But investigators have not yet found a connection linking the victims.
They are looking at the possibility that either the California victims were
stricken by a swine flu strain from Asia, that then migrated south, or that
the flu produced in Mexico slipped north across the border.
"We have to understand the chain of transmission," Lezana said. "It's part
of the investigation that has to be done."
He acknowledged that La Gloria seemed to be the only early outbreak site
near a pig farm.
The $58.6 million Granjas Carroll company, which is 50 percent owned by
Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, employs 850 people and has more than 50,000
pigs, the company says.
Mexico's deadly new flu is a hybrid combining human, swine and bird
influenza. The World Health Organization has warned that it could fuel a
worldwide outbreak, or pandemic, though the WHO doesn't know where it
specifically started either.
"Right now it's not possible to really know where this virus originated,"
said Keiji Fukuda, the deputy chief of the World Health Organization said
Tuesday. "This is a newly emerged virus rather than one that has been around
a while."
So far, only 7 of Mexico's more than 150 reported flu deaths have been
definitely confirmed to be from the new hybrid strain. Many others are
probable or suspected and much still remains unknown.
New flu strains are created when earlier viruses mutate within the cells of
a victim's body and then are transmitted to others. Epidemics occur because
people have no, or only limited, immunity to the new strain.
The possibility that La Gloria gave birth to the outbreak - precautions
against which have paralyzed Mexico City and other areas of the country -
was first raised by Veratect, a Seattle company that conducts disease and
other risk assessments for private and government clients.
The relationship of the flu strain to the Granjas Carroll, a complex of 16
large pig farms, isn't certain, Lezana said. Investigators have so far found
no link between the farm and the Hernandez boy. And no one from La Gloria
works at the farm, he said.
Villagers believe the farm, which they accuse of fouling the local air and
groundwater with pig offal, is to blame.
Authorities say no one in La Gloria died from the recent flu bout.
"We don't have any deaths registered," Lezana said of La Gloria's outbreak.
"In an outbreak we can't attribute every death to it."
Swine flu is typically transmitted by being in close proximity to infected
pigs or in direct contact with their mucus, said Tom Burkgren, executive
director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians.
Smithfield Foods has "found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of
North American influenza in the company's swine herd or its employees at its
joint ventures in Mexico," the company said Tuesday.
"As previously announced, those operations are fully cooperating with
Mexican officials and are submitting samples from their swine herds to
confirm the absence of North American influenza," the statement said
--Copyright � 2008 The Houston Chronicle
=============================================
Mexican child's case may provide answers in swine flu outbreak
Edgar Hernandez became ill last month and recovered after a week, his mom
says. It's unclear how he got the virus, but the family lives near a pig
farm and the area is home to many migrant workers.
By Eduardo Soto and Tracy Wilkinson
April 29, 2009
Reporting from Mexico City and La Gloria, Mexico -- The boy at the center of
efforts to trace this new, deadly flu strain could barely keep still. A
parade of visitors, many of them journalists, on Tuesday stopped by the
small concrete home where Edgar Hernandez lives with his mother and
3-year-old brother.
Edgar, who is 5, (not 4 as government officials previously reported) is the
earliest known victim of the disease in Mexico. How he contracted it could
be a key clue in figuring out the virus' path.
Maria del Carmen Hernandez, Edgar's mother, said her son began sniffling and
feeling feverish in late March. She gave him flu medicine from the pharmacy,
but the fever persisted. She put wet cloths on his forehead. She considered
putting him in a tub of water.
Finally, after a week, the fever broke, and Edgar seemed fine, she said.
"We didn't isolate him," Hernandez said. "We all slept in the same bed, he'd
greet his little brother with a kiss. We all lived together and no one else
got sick."
Mexican authorities say Edgar was among several hundred people who came down
with the flu in the remote La Gloria farming area, in Veracruz state, in
March and early April. All of the sickness was at the time attributed to an
especially nasty seasonal flu.
Later, when the strain of swine flu was identified elsewhere in Mexico and
the United States, several samples from La Gloria were retested. All came
back as regular flu, except Edgar's.
He had been infected by the swine flu strain, said Dr. Miguel Angel Lezana,
head of the national Epidemiological Vigilance and Disease Control Center.
How is not yet known.
"We have more questions than answers," Lezana said in a briefing for a small
group of reporters in Mexico City.
Investigators are working on two hypotheses, Lezana said. La Gloria is near
a huge pig farm, and residents have complained that the agribusiness is
contaminating their soil, water and air. However, Lezana said that state
inspectors have tested pigs throughout Veracruz and found no sick animals.
La Gloria and surrounding parts of Veracruz are also home to many migrant
workers who travel between Mexico and the United States. Officials there
have said one outbreak of flu started when a migrant returned from the U.S.
and infected his wife, who in turn infected several women in the town.
Hernandez said she was surprised that her son was afflicted with such a
potentially serious illness, something she caught wind of from neighbors who
had seen it on the news. She has heard the rumors about the pig farm, but
she doesn't know how her son got sick.
Edgar seemed oblivious to the attention Tuesday. He ran around the house,
playing with his brother, appearing to be the picture of health.
Soto is a special correspondent.
-- Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times
202 West 1st Street
Los Angeles, California, 90012
--
Jason P
Jews have been masterminds at talking from both sides of their mouths. In
the U.S. they are always perverting the facts with new "Zionist" and Jewish
Chauvinism in their choice of language, and political vernacular. And they
insist others must follow suit or they cry "anti-Semitism" like screeching
hyenas.
xxa...@yahoo.co.uk
YOURS AND YOU YOURSELF IS A PIG!