A young 5-year-old boy, Edgar Hernandez, has been identified as "patient zero" in the swine flu outbreak, the first person infected by the disease once it made the pig to human leap.
One only hopes Edgar Hernandez does not get teased or vilified for his role in the swine flu outbreak. His is an innocent role, but we know how cruel kids can be.
Edgar’s mother, Maria del Carmen Hernandez, 34, already faces such vilification:
“Some people are saying my boy is to blame for everyone else in the country getting sick. I don’t believe that. I don’t know what to think.”
It's hard to believe that doctors could narrow the search for a culprit down to one person. After all, Edgar was one of hundreds of people in his village of La Gloria who came down with flulike symptoms in an outbreak that federal officials say began March 9.
In fact, does it really matter? What is necessary now is to find a way to help those sick, and to keep the disease from spreading, or at least, to mitigate its damage.
This unique variant, a mix of swine, avian, and human flu has killed over 150 people in Mexico, while in the U.S. the number of cases nationwide rose to 68 and a federal health official warned that deaths were likely.
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#1 I'm concerned with
I'm concerned with canteloupes from Guatemala. How are they transported? How would I know whether or not they were loaded into a truck that had transported infected animals?