Not me!

[Typo corrected on day of publication] From Veracruz, we have frantic denials. From the Mexican newspaper El Universal. Translation courtesy of the Raven's girlfriend.

Xalapa, Veracruz--From December 2008 to March of this year, 500 people from the town of La Glora in the sub-county (municipio) of Perote, have presented respiratory illnesses. Among these cases were two deaths from pneumonia, said the subdirector of Prevention and Control of Disease of the Secretary of Health and Welfare, Alejandro Escobar Mesa, confirming the rash of respiratory illnesses in the stated locality.

Nonetheless, the governor [of Veracruz] Fidel Herrera Beltrán denied that the mountainous municipio of Perote was the birthplace of the lastest outbreak of porcine influenza and he reminded people that this illness is found in Asia.

In a message from the state Capital, he clarified that the origin of the porcine influenza is in Asia, so it cannot be related to the factory farming of pigs in Perote.

"[The virus] is found in Asia, in China. From there it came, via travelers to North America. Certainly from there it went to the D.F. and the State of Mexico. There is no connection with the factory farms in the valley of Pertote", he stated, and denied that the porcine influenza has any relation to Granjas Carroll, which operates in Perote.

Equally, the pig farming business, stated that none of its workers, nor any of its more than half a million pigs have shown any signs of influenza. [Pigs can be healthy carriers--The Translators.]

The company, which operates in the Mexican states of Puebla and Veracruz, clarified that they have no records of outbreaks of porcine influenza in any of its 907 workers, not in their over 60,000 pork bellies, nor in their over half a million pigs.

The official report states that the virus is found in people not linked with pig farming, that is to say, they have never had contact with the pigs. "From which we may conclude that the contagion is human to human."

The SAGARPA [Mexican Dept. of Agriculture] inspector for this region, Octavio Legarreta, stated that at the end of the week he had the valley of Perote inspected with special attention to La Gloria; no pigs with porcine influenza were found.

Nonetheless Escobar Mesa, the Mexican Secretary of Health, confirmed a rash of "respiratory illnesses" in this region. Of the 500 reported, two were influenza, one porcine influenza, which is the first case in this municipio, reported last Sunday.

"Only two cases of influenza, one type A and one type B," he clarified.

(original article)