Near La Gloria in Veracruz state, Mexico, there is a farm that raises up to one million pigs a year. The facility is part-owned by Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based US company.
Residents living in the proximity of the farm have long complained of the smell and the clouds of flies that are drawn to "manure lagoons" - liquid waste generated by this type of mega-farm operation.
It turns out the first case of swine flu appeared a fortnight earlier than believed.
The victim was a La Gloria resident - a four year old boy named Edgar Hernandez. Initially it was thought he had contracted ordinary influenza, but tests have since shown that he was infected with swine flu.
Edgar Herrnandez
The Mexican Social Security Institute stated in early April that the 'lagoon flies' may have been the original disease vector of the virus.
Pig farm operators and owners have been put on the defensive. Smithfield claims that it has found no clinical signs of swine disease in its herds. Mexico's National Organization of Pig Production and Producers has denied that the virus originated in pigs.
Nonetheless infection patterns suggest that there may be a connection with pig farm manure lagoons.
In early April there was an outbreak of a powerful respiratory disease in La Gloria. The town had to be sealed off and a chemical spray used to kill the swarms of flies that had reportedly invaded people's homes.
James Wilson - a founding member of Biosurveillance Indication and Warning Analysis Community (BIWAC) - has reports on his website that indicate 60 per cent of La Gloria's population of 3,000 have sought out medical assistance since February.
Mexico's health minister, Jose Angel Cordova, announced that epidemiologists want to take a closer look at pigs in Mexico as the possible source of the outbreak.
More detail on Times online here.
