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MEXICO CITY: More rapid laboratory testing and other measures to contain an outbreak of swine flu were expected here Tuesday, as schools closed across the country and the probable national death toll climbed to 152, officials said.
Mexico's deadly outbreak has sparked global concern, as a rising number of cases have been detected worldwide.
The World Health Organization on Monday raised its flu pandemic alert level from three to four, signalling a "significant increase in risk of a pandemic," amid fears the world may be facing the flu pandemic that health officials have been warning about for years.
Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said the number of probable deaths from swine flu rose Monday to 152 from 149.
Cordova also signalled for the first time that the epidemic may be abating: the number of suspected flu deaths had gone from six on Saturday to five on Sunday and to three on Monday, he said.
"We received reports of three more (deaths) today," he said in an interview with Mexico's Televisa.
Cordova cautioned that the cause of the latest deaths had not been confirmed, but that they could be taken as a reference point.
Officials have confirmed 20 people died from the disease, while the number of cases under observation in Mexico has reached 1,614.
Faster and more effective laboratory tests for the flu were to begin Tuesday, Cordova said.
"We're in the decisive moment of the crisis. The number (of deaths) will continue rising," Cordova said earlier.
Despite measures to contain the virus and increasing warnings for visitors to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico, Cordova later insisted that Mexico could maintain business and tourist relations with the rest of the world.
As travellers returned from trips to Mexico, Europe's first cases were confirmed in Britain and Spain.
"All education activities across the country are suspended from next Tuesday to May 6," Cordova said Monday. Schools in Mexico City, the heart of the epidemic, were already closed last Friday.
With the Mexican capital's zoos, museums, churches, courts and many restaurants already closed in the urban area of some 20 million, Mexico City sought to limit business activity too, despite an economy hard hit by the crisis and already suffering from the flu outbreak.
The moves were expected to be met with reluctance in a country already battered by the economic crisis.
Four days after the first alert of swine flu in Mexico, the country's Institute of Social Security launched a campaign calling on families of people who had caught the disease to present themselves to doctors.
The government has been criticised for failing to respond quickly enough to the first signs of the flu and of failing to quarantine close family members who could catch the disease or pass it on.
"It's a fundamental step in containing the epidemic," the institute said in a statement.
The World Health Organization has warned the new strain of flu, apparently born when human and avian flu viruses infected pigs and became mixed, could further mutate.
After Mexico, the United States has so far recorded the highest number of cases, with at least 40 confirmed, non-fatal, swine flu patients in five states.
The Mexican government agreed to regular meetings with the United States and Canada to try to contain the virus, Cordova said late Monday.
- AFP/yb
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