around fifteen percent of the population experienced the symptoms

A Mexican town with a small population of 3,000 is thought to be “Ground Zero” for the outbreak of the Mexican swine flu. It has even been reported that a 4 year old boy is the “Patient Zero” being the first confirmed H1N1 case. In the Mexican town called La Gloria around fifteen percent of the population experienced the symptoms of the flu and especially respiratory problems.

Around 50 percent of the people from the town actually go to Mexico City regularly and it is likely that this is how the virus spread to the big city were the majority of the cases have occurred. The residents of La Gloria say that when they heard of the influenza virus infecting the capital city they immediately recognised it as the same influenza that they had previously suffered from. Mexican health officials are not convinced that La Gloria is where the virus started but a swine breeding farm is close by.

Peter Roeder from the United Nations explained that it was possible that somebody had given influenza to a pig which already had another version of swine flu and that the same pig could also have contracted a bird flu virus, which ended up mutating altogether into the new H1N1 influenza virus which is shooting around the globe. At this point in time there are many different theories as to exactly where the swine influenza virus originated and it will be sometime before scientists put together all the pieces of the complicated jigsaw puzzle which is emerging.

Influenza viruses are always mutating and that is why they can be so dangerous because conventional antiviral medication can become ineffective in the face of a rapidly changing virus. The World Health Organisation recommends that the medications Tamiflu and Relenza are the most effective medications to treat the swine influenza virus in humans at present.