Swine flu: House calls aided spread

MEXICO CITY - The first person to die of swine flu was a 39-year-old tax inspector whose job required her to make door-to-door visits, putting her in contact with at least 300 unsuspecting members of the public when the disease was at its most virulent, Mexican authorities said.

Maria Adela Gutierrez, a census-taker in the southern tourist city of Oaxaca, was admitted to a local hospital on April 8 and died five days later. She had been suffering acute respiratory problems, exacerbated by diabetes and severe diarrhoea, and is believed to have infected scores of people.

The story of her death, which occurred three weeks before the virus was officially identified, came as Mexico remained on high alert.

Gutierrez's demise may fuel controversy over Mexico's handling of the outbreak, which has been criticised as chaotic and secretive. Authorities at Oaxaca's Hospital Civil Aurelio Valdivieso, where she was treated, did not confirm that an infectious disease had broken out there until April 21, by which time another patient had died.

Doctors initially thought Gutierrez was suffering from pneumonia. But when 16 further patients exhibited signs of severe respiratory infection, they established a quarantine area around the emergency room. Shortly afterwards, state health authorities began to track down every person she had had recent contact with.

That discreet search suggested that Gutierrez may have unwittingly been a latter-day "Typhoid Mary". It turned up more than 300 people, including many members of the public whom she had interviewed as she knocked on doors in late March and early April.

Local sources told Veratect, the US disease-tracking company which sounded the alarm, that between 33 and 61 of those interviewees "exhibited symptoms" of a flu-like illness, though none have died.

Oaxaca is the historic capital of Oaxaca state, a mountainous region on Mexico's southern Pacific coast. It borders Veracruz, the state where the virus is believed to have first infected humans.

Edgar Hernandez, a boy who contracted the disease on April 2 and subsequently made a full recovery, was identified by Mexico's Health Secretary, Jose Angel Cordova, as "patient zero" - the first officially identified victim of the disease. He lives in the small town of La Gloria, in Veracruz province, 8km downwind of a vast pig farm identified as a potential source of the outbreak.

- INDEPENDENT