Reply #28: It would seem to have been a San Diego patient that was first identified as having the new strain

[muriel_volestrangler]

But the 2009 H1N1 strain was first identified in a patient in San Diego, he said. Once the CDC informed the world of a new flu virus, Canadian virus hunters announced that the disease strain spreading across Mexico was the same virus identified in San Diego.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-fluborder_30bus.ART.State.Edition2.4a5fdbd.html

and also:

Five days since the announcement of Mexico's swine flu epidemic, the search for the source of the new virus that combines pig, bird and human influenza is focusing on three main possible sites.

The first is the village of La Gloria on the edge of a large flat valley about 250 kilometres east of Mexico City where samples taken from a five-year-old boy on 3 April remain the earliest yet confirmed case of the disease.

The second focuses on San Diego, California where two other people became sick with the same virus around the same time, and the third on the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca where a 39-year-old census taker died on 12 April.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/29/swine-flu-mexico-la-gloria

What appears to have been the first news report - Tuesday April 21st:

A new type of swine flu has infected at least two children in California and while both have recovered, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday they were looking for more cases.

They say it is possible the children were infected by other people and not by pigs, and said they have consulted with officials in Canada, Mexico and at the World Health Organization although there is no evidence that the new virus is circulating widely.

In a special alert, the CDC asked doctors in California's San Diego and Imperial counties, on the border with Mexico, to test anyone with flu-like symptoms and send the samples in for testing.

"Both of these kids came to our attention because they were seen in clinics which do routine surveillance for influenza infections," the CDC's Dr. Lyn Finelli told reporters in a telephone briefing.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKTRE53K4XU20090421?sp=true