Thursday, May 21, 2009

Scientists investigate Mexican town's flu mystery - AOL Money & Finance

Scientists investigate Mexican town's flu mystery - AOL Money & Finance:

"MEXICO CITY -No one has identified ground zero in the swine flu epidemic. Just where or when the new strain of influenza first jumped from a pig and began infecting people is a scientific mystery — one that a group of flu detectives is determined to solve.

Scientists are returning next week to La Gloria, a pig-farming village in the Veracruz mountains where Mexico's earliest confirmed case of swine flu was identified. They hope to learn where the epidemic began by taking fresh blood samples from villagers and pigs, and looking for antibodies that could suggest exposure to previous swine flu infections.

Some experts say it's pointless to worry about what happened in La Gloria now that the swine flu virus has spread around the world.

But others argue that a thorough investigation could be key to preventing future epidemics.

And Mexico has another reason to care: If it can somehow rule out the possibility that La Gloria's pigs infected humans, then it can tell the world it wasn't to blame for the epidemic — that the never-before-seen H1N1 swine flu virus came from somewhere else."

No comments:

Post a Comment