Residents insist their town is flu’s ground zero

RESIDENTS in this community of 3,000 believe their town is ground zero for the swine flu epidemic, even if health officials are not saying so.

More than 450 residents say they’re suffering from respiratory problems from contamination spread by pig waste at nearby breeding farms co-owned by a US company. Officials with the company say they’ve found no sign of swine flu on its farms, and Mexican authorities have not determined the outbreak’s origin.

The swine flu strain is suspected in more than 150 deaths in Mexico.

As far back as late March, roughly one-sixth of the residents here in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz began complaining of respiratory infections that they say can be traced to a farm that lies upwind 8km to the north, in the town of Xaltepec.

But Jose Luis Martinez, a 34-year-old resident of La Gloria, said he knew the minute he learned about the outbreak on the news and heard a description of the symptoms: fever, coughing, joint aches, severe headache and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

“When we saw it on the television, we said to ourselves, ‘This is what we had,’” he said. “It all came from here.”

Mr Martinez and Bertha Crisostomo, a liaison between the villagers and the municipal government of Perote to which La Gloria belongs, say half of the people from the town live and work in Mexico City most of the week, and could have spread the swine flu in the capital.

Granjas Carroll de Mexico, 50% owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, Inc, has eight farms in the area. Smithfield spokeswoman Keira Ullrich said the company has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza in its swine herd or its employees working at its ventures anywhere in Mexico.

Residents say they have been bothered for years by the fetid smell of one the farms and they suspect their water and air has been contaminated by waste.