World flu fears sharpen, more cases detected

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 9:32 PM Posted by Beijing News


Airlines and tour operators suspended flights to Mexico on Tuesday as worldwide fears over a new deadly strain of flu tilted towards panic, with new confirmed cases popping up in various countries.

The United States warned it may see its first fatalities from the , which thus far has proved fatal only in Mexico, the epicenter, where more than 150 people are believed to have died from the flu.

US health authorities on Tuesday raised sharply the number of confirmed US cases to at least 65, and California declared a state of emergency.

Costa Rica became the first Central American nation to detect a confirmed case, while Europe, Israel and New Zealand increased their counts.

Ecuador joined Balkan countries and China in banning pork products from Mexico and the United States despite experts' insistence that the virus -- a version of swine flu identified as H1N1 -- could not be caught from eating meat from pigs.

The World Health Organization said it was "critical" that travelers from Mexico who might be infected be identified, but it did not recommend travel bans.

The body has not declared an outright , despite the spread of the flu from Mexico to seven other countries.

But it was clear many companies and authorities were already treating the emergency as a global issue.

"Swine flu is an international problem now, it's crossed two continents, it's got to be dealt with by international agreements," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters in Poland.

Cuba on Tuesday suspended flights to and from Mexico until Friday.

A Canadian airline, Air Transat, said it was also halting flights to Mexico until June 1.

And French travel firms announced they were suspending all trips to the country.

The governments of Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Sri Lanka and Switzerland became the latest to advise against travel to Mexico.

International Air Transport Association IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani warned the swine flu threat could have a "significant" impact on air traffic.

"The timing could not be worse given all of the other economic problems airlines are facing," he said.

US President Barack Obama is seeking 1.5 billion dollars from Congress to boost US efforts to contain the flu's spread, the White House said.

The urgency given to his move came as authorities in California declared their state of emergency after detecting two deaths in Los Angeles that could have resulted from the virus.

Theories being raised including that maybe the patients who died in Mexico were treated too late or with insufficient antiviral drugs, or that, possibly, the H1N1 viral strain had mutated into a less virulent form as it moved out of Mexico, according to John Oxford, a top virologist at the Royal London Hospital.





03 Contemporary Art by the Sea exhibition in Belgium. REUTERS/Thierry Roge

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