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MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities on Friday closed all schools in the capital and central Mexico as the WHO announced hundreds of human cases of swine flu in the country, including 57 suspected deaths.
The outbreak has killed at least 20 people in the past month, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said in announcing the school closures.
"This afternoon, the epidemic was confirmed by Canadian and US labs to be a new influenza virus," Cordova said in a televised statement late Thursday in which he urged people to avoid large crowds, shaking hands, kissing people as a greeting, or using the subway.
The government has gathered 600,000 vaccines to help protect healthcare workers dealing with the outbreaks, the health minister said.
The World Health Organization said on Friday there are 800 suspected swine flu cases in Mexico and seven cases reported in the southwestern United States.
It was not immediately clear whether Mexican authorities had identified the outbreak as that of swine flu, as labelled by the WHO.
Since March 18, 13 people have died in Mexico City, four in the central state of San Luis Potosi, two in Baja California in the northwest and one in the southern state of Oaxaca, Cordova said.
- AFP/so
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