http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...o-birdflu.html

Mexican official denies rumor of bird flu on border with U.S.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:27 a.m. March 23, 2006

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's Agriculture Department on Thursday denied rumors that a case of high-pathogenic avian flu had been found in a town on the U.S. border.
“Mexico is totally free of bird flu,” Jose Angel del Valle, the department's head of animal health, said in a telephone interview.

A supposed news item posted on the Web site radiolivre.org on Wednesday said there had been a case of H5 bird flu in a duck found dead in the town of Nogales, on the U.S. border.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said earlier Thursday that the report was a complete hoax, but the rumor affected Chicago Board of Trade grain prices overnight Wednesday.

Last year, Mexico reported several isolated cases of low-pathogenic bird flu, which doesn't affect humans. The most recent case was in the southern state of Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border.