Concern grows in Mexico, US over killer flu

Friday, April 24, 2009 at 6:33 PM Posted by Beijing News


Mexican and US officials Friday took emergency steps to contain outbreaks of a new multi-strain swine flu that has sickened hundreds in Mexico, causing at least 20 deaths, and infected eight in the United States.

"There were 60 deaths with similar symptoms," said Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova, who confirmed 20 deaths from swine flu and said he was probing the other 40.

Mexican authorities, launching a huge campaign to prevent the spread of the virus, including closing schools and urging people to avoid contact in public, said they were investigating 943 possible swine flu infections.

The World Health Organization went on high alert, dispatching top experts to the United States and Mexico amid concern that the new virus could become a global epidemic.

"It's a virus that mutated from pigs and transmitted to some humans," Cordova said earlier.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC said tests show some of the Mexican victims died from the same new strain of swine flu that affected eight people in Texas and California.

"It's very obvious that we are very concerned. We've set up emergency operation centers," CDC spokesman Dave Daigle told AFP.

The WHO said Canadian laboratory testing had confirmed 18 cases of swine fever among almost 1,000 Mexicans found to have an influenza-like illness in three regions -- of whom 62 died.

"Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus, and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern," the Swiss-based body said in a statement.

"The majority of the Mexican cases have occurred in otherwise healthy young adults. Influenza normally affects the very young and the very old, but these age groups have not been heavily affected in Mexico," the WHO said.

The UN health agency said samples from 12 were "genetically identical" to cases detected in the US state of California.

US medical authorities also expressed strong concern as eight known, non-fatal cases were reported, with President Barack Obama being fully briefed on an outbreak, according to a White House spokesman.

The US also probed nine suspect cases.

The WHO was to send a team of experts to Mexico to work with health authorities. WHO head Margaret Chan was due to speak on the issue Saturday, her spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told AFP.

Meanwhile, Mexican officials warned people to avoid crowds or using the subway, closed the capital's museums and prepared to launch a massive vaccination campaign in the densely-populated capital, although they lacked vaccines.

The government said it had 500,000 flu vaccines and planned to administer them first to health workers, but supplies were short for 20 million living in Mexico City.

The CDC website states that there is no vaccine to specifically protect humans from swine flu, only to protect pigs.

If a pig is simultaneously infected with a human and an avian influenza virus, it can serve as a "mixing vessel" for the two viruses that could combine to create a new, more virulent strain.





Clary

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