April 30, 2009
UN farm experts head to Mexico to help battle swine flu
The UN food agency Wednesday (April 29) dispatched a team of agriculture experts to Mexico to help the country at the centre of the swine flu outbreak, an animal health expert said.
"They will try to visit all the hot spots," Jan Slingenbergh of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' animal health department told AFP, as suspicions grow that pig farms may have been the source of the disease.
Noting that the experts would be in the country as "guests," Slingenbergh said: "There isn't yet an itinerary, which will be set with the local authorities."
The experts from the Rome-based organization are travelling with colleagues from the World Organization for Animal Health, the FAO's chief veterinarian Joseph Domenech said Tuesday.
"The team ... will be reinforced by an epidemiologist from Atlanta, and will work on site with experts from the World Health Organization," he said.
The WHO said Wednesday that the number of infections confirmed by laboratory tests stands at 105 worldwide.
