La Gloria: is this ‘ground zero’ for swine fever?

As swine fever spreads out of Mexico and across the world, a village 200km east of Mexico City has been identified as the possible source of the virus. La Gloria is home to 3,000 people, half of whom travel to the capital every week to work. Five miles away from the town is Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a farm part-owned by Smithfield Foods, a huge American agri-business operation.
 
This farm, which bred a total of 950,000 pigs in 2008, has long been the subject of complaints from local residents. For years, they have objected to the manure lagoons where the pigs' excrement is stored, and the swarms of flies that have invaded the area as a result. One Mexican newspaper, Reforma, has reported that villagers in La Gloria have been harassed and even sent to prison for criticising the giant pig-breeding business.

About 60 per cent of the village were ill a with a severe and atypical cold

Earlier this year, many of La Gloria's residents fell ill with respiratory problems. As one woman told the Guardian: "Some people started getting ill in February and an eight-month-old baby died. After that another baby died on March 21. Suddenly most of the village got ill."

She went on: "It was [the] weekend and the tiny clinic here was closed. The state health authorities then did send doctors and nurses to look after us, and give us medication. About 60 per cent of the village were ill and we asked them what it was and they said it was a severe and atypical cold. We talked about influenza and they said that was impossible, that influenza had been eradicated from Mexico."
 
Describing the illness, another La Gloria resident said: "The symptoms were exactly like the ones they talk about now [with swine flu]. High fevers, pain in the muscles and the joints, terrible headaches, some vomiting and diarrhoea. The illness came on very quickly and whole families were laid up."
 
The authorities, who responded to the outbreak by sealing off the town and spraying it with chemicals, sent one sample of mucus to American laboratories. The sample was from a five-year-old boy called Edgar Hernandez Hernandez (pictured above), who has since fully recovered. It came back as a match for the virus which has now killed more than 150 Mexicans and persuaded the World Health Organisation in Geneva to raise the alert level from three to four, two steps short of a full pandemic.
 
Smithfield Foods denies that there is any connection between its animals and the flu outbreak. In a statement, the pork giant said: "Based on available recent information, Smithfield has no reason to believe that the virus is in any way connected to its operations in Mexico."

The company also noted that its joint ventures in Mexico routinely administer influenza virus vaccination to their swine herds and conduct monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza.
 
Fidel Herrera, Governor of Veracruz, the state in which La Gloria is situated, refuses to concede that the virus came from the village. He says that it started in China, and came to Mexico City from the United States. ·