1 May, 2009 Perote, Mexico — Residents of the Gloria stand on the street. The Carrol Farms industrial pig farms in the Perote area of Mexico are emerging as a likely suspect in the H1N1 swine flu that has held Mexico city under siege for the last week and swept across the world. The industrial feed lots are joint owned by the US company Smithfield farms and the Mexican multinational Agroindustrias de Mexico.
Scientists have found out that the H1N1 strain was orginally found on pig farms, and would have probably been passed from pigs in a feed lot to workers who could have passed it on to others. The first case of the swine flu was found in La Gloria a small farming town 8 miles from a large complex of 102 seperate feed lots in both Puebla and Veracruz State. La Gloria also suffered from a strange bout with a respiatory disease earlier this year, and have been complaining to the government since 2006 when a dozens of new feed lots were built in the area.
FAO says that so far there is no established evidence that this strain of the influenza A virus has entered the human population directly from pigs, but it urges national governments and the international community to step up disease surveillance in swine. A spokesperson from Smithfields Foods said there is no clinical signs of influenza being reported in pigs or employees in the farm. — Image by Trevor Snapp
The Swine. Influenza in Mexico City 
