UnNews:Mexico reconsiders controversial flu treatment
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| Mexico reconsiders controversial flu treatment | 
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29 April 2009
Mexico City, Mexico - Mexican officials are under increasing pressure to alter their plans for containing swine flu outbreaks in the human population. The World Health Organisation in Geneva described the Mexican "beheading" policy for preventing the spread of flu as "over-cautious".
Swine flu has infected dozens of people across the globe with symptoms that range from "mildly unpleasant" to "bastard nasty", but until recently nobody knew why only Mexicans have died as a result of infection.
The Mexican Swine Board said in a press statement:
"The law is inflexible. All confirmed cases of swine flu are to be slaughtered immediately to prevent the infection from spreading to the rest of the herd. This policy has been in force for the last sixty years and has been effective in ensuring that Mexican pork is free from at least that particular disease. We are simply implementing the policy as written in law."
The law dates back to the Great Swine Flu Epidemic of 1948 which almost destroyed Mexico's pig farming industry. It has never been repealed.
Also in accordance with the law, once certified free of swine flu, uninfected citizens are being ear-tagged, branded with a government mark, and then transported by open-topped lorry to a clean sty under the supervision of an appointed Mexican Swine Board vet.
Sources[edit]
- "Swine flu - first interplanetary pandemic?". BBC News, April 29, 2009,,,,