Meet the child known as “patient zero” by his doctors — 5-year-old Edgar Hernandez, who survived the earliest documented case of swine flu in an outbreak that, officials say, has now spread across four continents.
His family lives in the 3,000-population village of La Gloria in the state of Veracruz, where a flu outbreak was reported on April 2. State officials arrived and tested dozens of people.
Lab tests confirmed that Edgar was the only patient in Veracruz to test positive for the swine flu virus; the others had contracted a common flu. Health officials had returned to Edgar’s sample only after cases of the new flu strain were spotted around the country.
“In this case, there’s a patient who turned out to be positive for the swine-flu virus, with the exception that at that time in no region of the world it had been established as an etiological, epidemic cause,” said Mexico Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova.
Edgar has managed to bounce back from his symptoms and playfully credits ice cream for helping him feel better.
His mother blamed a huge pig farm in the neighborhood for the virus.
