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16 dead of "mysterious disease" in Kenya

by Paula | 5 May 2009 | permalink | comments
Tags: disease, globalization

Via the pandemic subreddit, from the International Society for Infectious Diseases: UNDIAGNOSED FATALITIES — KENYA: (BUNGOMA), REQUEST FOR INFORMATION:

Date: 3 May 2009
Source: Kenya KTN TV / The Standard [edited]
http://www.eastandard.net/videos/?id=1144013251

‘Mysterious disease’, 16 dead in Kenya

———————————————————

A total of 16 people have died of “mysterious” disease in western district. Text of report by Kenyan privately-owned TV station KTN on [3 May 2009] (video report available at Kenya News Paper The Standard website):

[Presenter] We have received reports this evening from Bungoma regarding the deaths of about 10 people in Kabula sub-location, in Bungoma South District in a week, from a disease which has not been established. According to area residents, the dead victims suffered from diarrhoea, vomiting and bleeding from their noses and eyes before dying.

The residents of the area have accused health officials of failing to take action to stop the deaths and the spreading of the disease. In one homestead, a man his wife and son died one after the other, spreading panic among people. The disease has so far not been established. Our reporter Zubeida Kananu has the details:

[Kananu] This is Remwa village, and soon after our arrival, we met sad and terrified people following the death of a whole family over the mysterious disease. It is said, a boy from this village died on Thursday [30 Apr 2009] this week from the disease and day later, his father died. His mother died shortly afterwards.

[Unidentified man in Swahili] Since he was taken ill, the boy did not speak and uttered no word even to the people attending to him when he was taken to hospital; he just died.

[Kananu] Before their deaths, the victims had diarrhoea, vomiting, shedding tears and blood from their eyes and noses. This disease is mysterious to the villagers. About 16 people from Remwa, Ashioya and Kabula villages in Bungoma district had the same symptoms and died from the disease.

[Second unidentified man in Swahili] People who have attended funeral ceremonies, having washed the bodies of their relatives for burial have died.

[Kananu] Following the eruption and spread of the disease, all pigs in the areas have been confined and some locked in their sheds over fears of the swine flu which erupted in Mexico some weeks ago.

Meanwhile, health officers from the area have been blamed for failing to take appropriate action to tackle the disease.

—
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail

[The description of the disease along with the perceived association
with preparation of bodies of deceased cases for burial is highly
reminiscent of descriptions that have accompanied outbreaks of viral
hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in Africa. The symptom complex of
diarrhea and vomiting along with epistaxis (nose bleed) and bleeding
from eyes has also been described in outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic
fevers.

Johnson et al demonstrated antibodies against Ebola virus, Marburg
virus and Rift Valley Fever Virus in residents of Lodwar, Laisamis,
Malindi/Kilifi (see ref 1 below). CCHF has also been described in
Kenya (see ref. 2 below). While there have not been reports of yellow
fever in humans in Kenya in more than 10 years, Kenya is still in the
yellow fever risk zone.

More information on this outbreak would be greatly appreciated.

For a map of Kenya, see
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/kenya_pol88.jpg. The Western Division borders with Uganda where outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic
fevers have been reported in recent times (see prior references below).

For the interactive HealthMap/ProMED map of Bungoma District, Western Division Kenya, see http://healthmap.org/r/00b3.

References:
—————-
1. Johnson BK, Ocheng D, Gichogo A, Okiro M, Libondo D, Tukei PM, Ho
M, Mugambi M, Timms GL, French M. Antibodies against haemorrhagic
fever viruses in Kenya populations. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg.
1983;77(5):731-3.

2. Dunster L, Dunster M, Ofula V, Beti D, Kazooba-Voskamp F, Burt F,
et al. First documentation of human Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever,
Kenya. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 2002 Sep;8. Available at
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol8no9/01-0510.htm

More excellent Smithfield-H1N1 coverage

by Paula | 29 April 2009 | permalink | comments [1]
Tags: food, disease

Fantastic, well-cited coverage of the Smithfield-H1N1 link from grain.org, website of the organization GRAIN which describes itself thus: “GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people’s control over genetic resources and local knowledge.”

From A food system that kills: Swine flu is meat industry’s latest plague:

Experts have been warning for years that the rise of large-scale factory farms in North America has created the perfect breeding grounds for the emergence and spread of new highly-virulent strains of influenza. “Because concentrated animal feeding operations tend to concentrate large numbers of animals close together, they facilitate rapid transmission and mixing of viruses,” said scientists from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2006. Three years earlier, Science Magazine warned that swine flu was on a new evolutionary “fast track” due to the increasing size of factory farms and the widespread use of vaccines in these operations. It’s the same story with bird flu. The crowded and unsanitary conditions of the farms make it possible for the virus to recombine and take on new forms very easily. Once this happens, the centralised nature of the industry ensures that the disease gets carried far and wide, whether by feces, feed, water or even the boots of workers. Yet, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “no formal national surveillance system exists to determine what viruses are prevalent in the US swine population.” The same is true of Mexico.

. . .

After countless efforts by the community to get the authorities to help — efforts which led to the arrest of several community leaders and death threats against people speaking out against the Smithfield operations — local health officials finally decided to investigate in late 2008. Tests revealed that more than 60 per cent of the community of 3,000 people were infected by a respiratory disease, but officials did not confirm what the disease was.

. . .

While it has not been widely reported, the region around the community of La Gloria is also home to many large poultry farms. Recently, in September 2008, there was an outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the region. At the time, veterinary authorities assured the public that it was only a local incidence of a low-pathogenic strain affecting backyard birds. But we now know, thanks to a disclosure made by Marco Antonio Núñez López, the President of the Environmental Commission of the State of Veracruz, that there was also an avian flu outbreak on a factory farm about 50 kilometres from La Gloria owned by Mexico’s largest poultry company, Granjas Bachoco, that was not revealed because of fears of what it might mean for Mexico’s export markets. It should be noted that a common ingredient in industrial animal feed is “poultry litter”, which is a mixture of everything found on the floor of factory poultry farms: fecal matter, feathers, bedding, etc

. . .

It is not the first time and it will not be the last time that corporate farms conceal disease outbreaks and put people’s lives at risk. It is the nature of their business. A couple of years ago in Romania, Smithfield refused to let local authorities enter its pig farms after residents complained of the stench coming from hundreds of dead corpses of pigs left rotting for days at the farms. “Our doctors have not had access to the American [company’s] farms to effect routine inspections,” said Csaba Daroczi, assistant director at the Timisoara Hygiene and Veterinary Authority. “Every time they tried, they were pushed away by the guards. Smithfield proposed that we sign an agreement that would oblige us to warn them three days before each inspection.” Eventually, it emerged that Smithfield had been concealing a major outbreak of classical swine fever on its Romanian farms.

In Indonesia, where people are still dying from bird flu and where many health experts believe the next pandemic virus will emerge, authorities can still not enter large corporate farms without the permission of the company. In Mexico, authorities deflected calls to investigate La Granja Carroll and accused the residents of La Gloria of spreading infection because “they use home remedies instead of going to the health centres to cure their flu.”

Note that all bolding is mine, and that the original article is extensively footnoted, which I deleted here for the sake of readability. I encourage you to go read the full Grain.org report, including its footnotes.

Political implications of the Smithfield-H1N1 story

by Paula | 29 April 2009 | permalink | comments
Tags: food, disease

The Smithfield-H1N1 story is finally picking up traction in the MSM. So far the Times Online has done the best job, at least as far as I’ve seen, making both the links and unknowns regarding Smithfield subsidiary Granjas Carroll’s role in the H1N1 outbreak clear. It also does an excellent job placing events in Perote in context.

The Mexican Government said it initially thought that the victim, Edgar Hernandez, 4, was suffering from ordinary influenza but laboratory testing has since shown that he had contracted swine flu. The boy went on to make a full recovery, although it is thought that at least 148 others in Mexico have died from the disease, and the number is expected to rise.

News of the infected boy is expected to create controversy in Mexico because the boy lived in Veracruz state, home to thousands of farmers who claim that their land was stolen from them by the Mexican Government in 1992. The farmers, who call themselves Los 400 Pueblos – The 400 Towns – are famous for their naked marches through the streets of Mexico City.

The boy’s hometown, La Gloria, is also close to a pig farm that raises almost 1 million animals a year. The facility, Granjas Carroll de Mexico, is partly owned by Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based US company and the world’s largest producer and processor of pork products. Residents of La Gloria have long complained about the clouds of flies that are drawn the so-called “manure lagoons” created by such mega-farms, known in the agriculture business as Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

It is now known that there was a widespread outbreak of a powerful respiratory disease in the La Gloria area earlier this month, with some of the town’s residents falling ill in February. Health workers soon intervened, sealing off the town and spraying chemicals to kill the flies that were reportedly swarming through people’s homes.

Good god, who knew?? Talk about a black swan! If the outbreak is definitively tied to Granjas Carroll’s CAFOs in Perote, the whole world will side with the Mexican peasantry against predatory corporate practices in not only Mexico but the whole of Central & Latin America. The implications for the global food infrastructure are staggering.

For even further context, check out this comment at my original Smithfield-H1N1 post:

I live in Mexico and have lots of links (in spanish) about the connection between the swine flu outbreak and the operation of Granjas Carroll in La Gloria. Citizens of this town have been fighting for years trying to stop the dangerous activities of this multi-national company. They have been harassed, imprisoned and still await their sentence. Granjas Carroll and the corrupt mexican government treat these people like criminals and deny all evidence that the pandemic has any connection with the operation of the pig breeding farms in Mexico.

As soon as the people in La Gloria started to get sick and die, the inhabitants had no doubts about where the disease was coming from. Health authorities said that it was the people’s fault if they were getting sick because they used traditional remedies instead of going to the hospitals. But citizens were indeed seeking for medical help, only to find ignorance, not medicines there. The health authorities in Veracruz reported that people were getting sick because the climate was very cold and there was too much dust in the air.

It’s not necessary to be really smart to see that if we have a new virus coming from pigs and this virus originated in Mexico, then the most likely scenario would be that Granjas Carroll should be held responsible for this. There are pictures available of the contaminated water bodies and the large piles of dead pig bodies stacked out in the open. Wether the virus spread though the contact with contaminated water or through the flies it’s unclear. However, I think that Granjas Carroll owes an explaination to the mexican people and the rest of the world.

Do you have any idea about what can we do so that people start talking about this? Here in Mexico all this information has been hidden in the last few days and corruption is likely to win the battle if nobody takes action. I think this is a nice example about how free trade agreements and globalization can affect third world countries and ultimately, the rest of the world. Please help us spread the truth!!!

If you’re unemployed and wondering WTF to do to earn a living, think up something simple related to food. You can easily put together a local-foods buying club from your kitchen table, or partner with an existing CSA to make deliveries. At the very least you’ll be able to cover your own food ass.

Why the Smithfield-H1N1 question matters

by Paula | 27 April 2009 | permalink | comments
Tags: disease, globalization

I’ve been watching the Smithfield/H1N1 story develop in the blogosphere since Tom Philpott over at Grist first wrote about it on Saturday. A number of valid criticisms have come up in blog posts and in comments that I think warrant discussion, so I want to take a few minutes to address those.

First, a quick note about my political views. One of the more common criticisms I’ve seen is that the Smithfield-H1N1 question is simply a means for liberals to attack business. This may be motivation for some folks, I can’t say; for myself however, I’m about as pro-business as you’re going to find anywhere. I don’t have any ideological issues with businesses growing up to become vast corporations; no qualms whatever about market economics; I think money is fascinating and I want a great deal of it. I think being a venture capitalist would be the coolest job in the world.

That being said I am also deeply pragmatic. I studied science journalism and technical communications as an undergrad at Penn State, so my view of things is much informed by science and technical issues that frequently escape notice. The fact is, consolidation of the global food supply is a phenomenally bad idea from every perspective imaginable, even that of short-term profits. With over $12 billion in annual revenues, Smithfield is the largest producer of pork and pork products in the world, and is therefore the central force behind consolidation of the global pork supply. Smithfield’s actions and inactions reverberate throughout the entire global food industry; the company’s operations are so enormous that even its small missteps can impact countless people around the world. How the company handles responses to the Mexican press, bloggers, and data aggregators such as Veratect is very much worth watching.

Criticism: flies can’t transmit the H1N1 swine influenza virus, and therefore it’s impossible that Smithfield’s hog operations in Mexico, run by its subsidiary Granjas Carroll, might be responsible for the outbreak.

Response: some background science

The H1N1 swine influenza virus is a subtype of Influenza-A virus. Influenza-A viruses infect several species of mammals, including humans, pigs, and birds. Pigs in particular are capable of contracting Influenza-A viruses that are normally associated only with birds, only with humans, and only with swine. When Influenza-A viruses commingle within a herd of pigs, they can share genetic information and mutate into a new strain that can be passed from human to human.

This appears to be what has happened with the latest H1N1 outbreak. It contains genetic material from bird, swine, and human influenza viruses and is capable of passing from human to human.

One of the ways Influenza-A viruses can spread is through manure. Given that H1N1 is an Influenza-A subtype it is entirely possible, if not likely, that flies could carry virus-containing manure particles from Granjas-Carroll CAFO lagoons to people. These need not be injected by the flies directly into humans, such as with West Nile Virus; it is enough that a fly might deposit manure particles containing the virus on a person’s face, hands, or uncooked food.

Please note that this is not merely speculation. Again, quoting the Biosurveillance outbreak timeline:

[A] municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.

Just in case that didn’t quite sink in: official investigations thus far into the origin of the swine flu outbreak point to Granjas-Carroll CAFO operations as the source of the virus, and that flies carried it from infected manure to humans. This is most certainly newsworthy information. That little tidbit contains more credibility than half the crap that passes as “news” on cable. What is still required is independent confirmation that this is or is not the case.

Criticism: this is just a way for liberal bloggers to try to bring down a good company like Smithfield.

Response: the issues here lean heavily toward conservative concerns and I’m a little surprised the conservative blogosphere didn’t pick it up first.

Primarily, Smithfield’s Granjas-Carroll operations in Mexico represent a major national security threat to the United States. Given the trade agreements between the United States and Mexico that allow goods to flow back and forth across the border almost completely unimpeded, it stands to reason that any reservoir of infectious disease in Mexico will almost certainly find its way to the US.

(And please note that this is not an illegal immigration matter — so far all the reported cases of H1N1 in the United States revolve around American citizens who’ve traveled to Mexico. In my opinion it seems unlikely that illegal immigrants crossing the border could bring the disease here: they would get sick before they ever reached US soil, and even if they did cross the border infected, they tend to stick together in their own communities.)

Moreover, the H1N1 outbreak is a perfect blueprint for anyone with malicious intent and access to a basement lab. Can’t get your designer disease across the US border? No problem! Just take it to Mexico and let American-owned subsidiary CAFOs do the rest. With progress on the Trans-Texas Corridor moving ahead, albeit in a toned-down and modified manner, this should scare the bejeezus out of everyone.

From this perspective it is critically important to identify whether Smithfield’s Granjas-Carroll operations are the source of the H1N1 virus. If they are it would be a case study in potential asymmetrical warfare acts against US interests that can fly totally under the radar, since actors need not even come in contact with any Americans or enter American territory.

Smithfield’s actions also impact business in general — especially if the H1N1 outbreak resulted from a subsidiary’s Mexican CAFOs operating at a lower level of sanitation than their American counterparts. The value of Smithfield stock will plunge, as will the stocks of any public company with Mexican CAFOs under its umbrella. This is pretty much the last thing markets need right now.

If Smithfield — or some other company — doesn’t take the fall on this, it has the potential to create food price inflation by effectively disappearing pork products from consumers’ shopping lists. This scenario would collapse pork prices and drive many hog farms out of business; simultaneously, demand would increase for alternative products as shoppers turn to them en masse, driving up prices across the board. Americans simply cannot afford to absorb the financial consequences of yet another big company’s irresponsibility, be it Smithfield or anyone else.

Criticism: passing along this information is irresponsible, since a definitive link between H1N1 and Smithfield has not yet been established.

Response: not passing it along is even more irresponsible. If the public does not pressure authorities to investigate Smithfield’s Granjas-Carroll operations, it won’t get done; conversely, if Smithfield does not pressure authorities to clear its name, it won’t get done.

Either way, the public is the clear winner on all fronts: environmental, security, financial & business, and health. In the long term, my hope is that this outbreak will wake people up to the fact that consolidating the global food supply is profoundly stupid. Decentralizing the food supply — that is, creating a business climate conducive to the establishment of small and medium-sized farms, processing operations, and packaging centers scattered across the landscape would satisfy the concerns of both the environmental left and the security & business oriented right. It would form the basis of local and regional economic systems that are more resilient against the busts and booms of globalization, and it would put a whole lot of willing people back to work.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the central issue inherent in the Smithfield-H1N1 question. If anything should cause the public to question the wisdom of consolidating the global food supply, this would be it.

Swine flu & Smithfield foods

by Paula | 25 April 2009 | permalink | comments [7]
Tags: disease, globalization

I’m posting here a copy of an email I sent this morning to the ComFood listserv regarding the current outbreak of H1N1 swine influenza virus. If you have further information or links, please add to the comments.

———

This morning I’ve been reading about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico which now appears to be crossing the US border, with 5 confirmed cases in CA and 2 in TX. In Mexico, 68 people have died.

According to the swine flu timeline put together by a company called Veratect, who evidently map infection disease events for clients like the WHO & CDC:

Residents [of La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to ‘flu.’ However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.

Granjas Carroll is a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods. According to the Smithfield Foods website, Granjas Carroll produced 950,000 hogs in fiscal 2008.

So now it looks like Big Ag is not only responsible for poisoning people directly with contaminated foods, but also for unleashing a deadly pandemic.

My question for the list — is this even theoretically possible with small-scale organic hog farming?

Here’s the CDC’s statement about H1N1 swine influenza virus: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/?s_cid=tw_epr_55

CNN: Texas family quarantined with swine flu virus: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu.family/

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Hat tip to @hyperlocavore who originally tweeted the swine flu timeline link, which is how I got hold of it.

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UPDATE: Swine flu subreddit

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UPDATE 04.25.09 10:00 am: Chinese agribiz giant eyes Smithfield takeover

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UPDATE 04.25.09 11:54 am: So far nothing at Google News for flu smithfield or flu "Granjas Carroll" or flu Cofco

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UPDATE 04.25.09 7:49 pm: The company responsible for putting together the flu outbreak timeline, Veratect, has established a Twitter feed for nearly real-time updates on the unfolding swine flu situation.

Fellow Comfoodie Tom Philpott has broken the Smithfield connection story at Grist.

Huffington Post has indirectly made the connection in its own excellent independent piece, which calls for an investigation of Mexican CAFOs.