Earliest Flu Case Detected In Veracruz
In a press conference on Monday, Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova defended health officials, explaining that cases of influenza detected in early April in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz didn’t alarm officials because they had no cause to suspect a new strain of swine flu.
The new strain is suspected in 149 deaths and some 1,600 hospitalizations in Mexico alone, while confirmed cases in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Britain and most recently Israel, have given the outbreak a global dimension with the World Health Organization inching closer to declaring it the first flu pandemic in 40 years.
Cordova stated that most of the flu cases tested in the Veracruz town of La Gloria were versions of the known H2N3 virus and were not related to the deadly new H1N2 strain. Infected patients in the Veracruz area were administered standard flu treatment and there were no fatalities. Cordova added that neither Mexican nor international medical protocol would have called for a potential pandemic alert at the time.
Officials at the U.S. Center for Infectious Disease Research have confirmed that the H2N3 virus found in most of the La Gloria cases is related to several strains of common swine flu, none of which are typically dangerous to humans
The first fatality linked to the new strain of swine flu did not occur until April 13 in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, from which samples were promptly sent to U.S. and Canadian officials for further, independent analysis.Â
Cordova did state, however, that another sample was kept from a 5-year-old boy named Edgar Hernandez in Perote ““ a town near La Gloria ““ some two week prior to the outbreaks in Mexico City. While it was initially believed that the young boy was suffering from normal influenza, tests have since confirmed that he was infected with the new H1N2 strain, making him the earliest known case. Hernandez has since made a full recovery.
The new A/H1N2 strain that has been so deadly in Mexico is a combination of swine, avian and human flues, though it has until now only been detected in humans.
Local authorities in Perote first became concerned as early as February when nearly a third of the town’s population became ill with influenza-like symptoms, which local residents blamed on a giant local pig farm.
The implicated pork-producing facility, Granjas Carroll de Mexico, is partly owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods. Smithfield is the world’s largest producer of pork products, raising nearly 1 million animals annually at the La Gloria facility alone.
Citizens of La Gloria had for some time complained about the swarms of flies hovering around the “manure lagoons” outside the enormous compound. Following the February outbreak, health workers temporarily quarantined the town and sprayed chemicals to kill the flies. It was later discovered that the outbreak was due to a respiratory disease unrelated to the current swine flu crisis.
According to Smithfield spokeswoman Keira Ullrich, the company has detected no signs of the swine flu among any of its employees or animal herds in Mexico. “Smithfield has no reason to believe that the virus is in any way connected to its operations in Mexico,” added Ullrich.
Shares of Smithfield Foods Inc. fell by 12 percent to just over $9 on Monday.
Mexico’s National Organization of Pig Production added its own statement Monday, saying: “We deny completely that the influenza virus affecting Mexico originated in pigs, because it has been scientifically demonstrated that this is not possible.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Cordova has asked epidemiologists to take a closer look at Mexico’s pigs as a potential nexus of the current medical crisis. Besides the young boy, no other cases of swine flu have been detected in the La Gloria region.
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