Mexico upbeat flu under control, joins US in criticizing pork bans

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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"Each day there are fewer serious cases and the mortality has been decreasing," Reuters reported Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova as telling a news conference in Mexico City, where millions were heeding government advice to stay at home.

Of the more than 100 suspected deaths from the new H1N1 virus that have emerged in Mexico, 19 had been confirmed, Cordova said. Mexico had already scaled back from its original estimate of 176 suspected deaths.

However, new cases of the mongrel virus, which mixes swine, avian and human flu strains, were still being tracked across the world. Costa Rica, Italy and Ireland confirmed cases of the disease, which has now been found in 18 countries.

In Geneva, the World Health Organization said H1N1 influenza had not spread in a sustained way outside North America, as required before the pandemic alert is raised to its highest level. But it said that would probably happen soon.

"I would still propose that a pandemic is imminent because we are seeing the disease spread," Michael Ryan, WHO director of Global Alert and Response, told a briefing on Saturday, Reuters reported.

Few are ready to take chances with the new virus, widely dubbed swine flu.

‘TRADE BANS UNNECESSARY’

The three North American nations tried to mitigate the economic impact of the crisis, hitting out at countries which had slapped bans on their pork products.

"We strongly urge the international community not to use the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza as a reason to create unnecessary trade restrictions and that decisions be made based on sound scientific evidence," the countries said in a joint statement, AFP reported.

Nearly 20 nations, including China and Russia, have imposed bans on the importation of pigs and pork products from Canada, the United States and Mexico.

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

Mexico also hit out at China, which it said had slapped "unjustified" health measures on Mexicans arriving in the country.

Around 40 Mexican nationals were in isolation in different parts of China Sunday even though they showed no symptoms of swine flu, the Mexican embassy in Beijing said.

China's Foreign Ministry had no immediate response, Reuters reported.

South Korea reported a new probable case of swine flu Sunday, one day after confirming its first case of the virus in a 51-year-old nun who had returned from Mexico.

Some 300 guests and staff remained under a seven-day quarantine in a Hong Kong hotel after a Mexican man brought the first case of swine flu into the city, which fears a repeat of the SARS and bird flu outbreaks of recent years.

"We have had one Korean who was screaming and shouting and an English couple who were very upset," one guest locked inside the Metropark hotel told AFP by phone.

FEWER PATIENTS WITH FEVERS

Mexican authorities said earlier they believed the situation with the new flu outbreak was stabilizing as fewer patients with severe symptoms were checking into hospitals.

The WHO said 15 countries had reported 615 infections, not including the reports of confirmed cases in Ireland, Italy and Costa Rica. The United States, the second hardest-hit nation, has confirmed 160 cases in 21 states.

But public hospitals in Mexico have noted a steady drop in patients turning up with fevers, suggesting the infection rate may be declining as people use hand gel and avoid crowds.

Almost all infections outside Mexico have been mild. The only death in another country has been a Mexican toddler who was taken to the United States before he became ill.

Scientists are still trying to assess how the new virus behaves and compares to regular seasonal flu strains, which kill between 250,000 and 500,000 globally every year.

WHO hiked its alert level to 5 from 3 last week -- the last step before a pandemic -- due to the flu's spread and the threat it could target poor and disease-prone communities.