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MEXICO CITY - A 23-month-old US child died from swine flu, becoming the first fatal victim outside Mexico and the spread of the virus around the globe heightened calls Wednesday for tougher travel restrictions.
The death of the toddler, announced by the US Centers for Disease Control, came as three new countries announced confirmed cases of the deadly virus. Another death in Los Angeles is also being investigated by US authorities.
With growing signs that the flu is easily passed between humans, Mexico City authorities shut down bars, cafes, gyms, cinemas and tourist sites, including the world-famous Aztec and Mayan pyramids.
More than 150 people are believed to have died from swine flu in Mexico though the number confirmed by strict laboratory tests is just seven. More than 1,600 people have been infected in Mexico and the World Health Organisation has stepped up pandemic warnings in recent days.
Germany (three cases), Costa Rica with two and Austria (one) became the latest countries to confirm they had confirmed sufferers.
Officials at Berlin's Robert Koch Institute, responsible for disease control and prevention, said a 22-year-old woman was in hospital in Hamburg and that a 37-year-old woman and a man in his 30s were in separate hospitals in Bavaria.
All three had recently returned from holidays in Mexico.
Other nations announced their infection tallies had increased.
Authorities in Israel, New Zealand, Spain and Britain increased their confirmed cases of infection with the virus, believed to be a previously unseen amalgam of different flu viruses.
The spread of the disease stepped up calls for tougher international action.
France is to ask the European Union to ban flights to Mexico, Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot said in Paris.
"We will ask our colleagues to look at suspending outbound flights to Mexico," she told reporters after a government meeting on the flu crisis.
She said flights from Mexico would not be stopped so that people at risk would not be tempted to find another route home and thus escape testing.
Major tour agencies and cruise lines have already suspended trips to Mexico, while Argentina and Cuba have already barring flights to and from the country.
Among those confirmed to have contracted the virus are a couple from Scotland who recently returned from honeymoon in Mexico's Cancun resort and a second set of Cancun honeymooners were quarantined in their own Edinburgh home as they awaited the results of swine flu tests.
WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said it was "critical" to identify travellers from Mexico who might be infected with swine flu.
"It helps us to monitor the spread of the virus worldwide and how it is moving," Fukuda said.
The WHO has raised its warning level to Phase 4 on the six-level scale, which indicates the illness is being passed from person to person, although officials said much about the outbreak was still unknown.
"We don't have information on how it acts, how it transmits," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman ahead of a meeting of experts from affected countries on Wednesday.
Experts say the current virus -- a version of swine flu identified as A/H1N1 -- cannot be caught from eating meat from pigs, and instead are recommending simple hygiene procedures like washing hands.
Some have suggested that those who died in Mexico were treated too late or with insufficient drugs, or that perhaps the strain mutated into something less virulent when it left the country.
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.
South Korean officials said the country had nine suspected cases of swine flu infection, but that four of those had turned out negative.
China meanwhile angrily rejected foreign media reports pointing to the country as the source of a deadly swine flu outbreak, saying they were baseless and aimed at tarnishing the nation's image.
- AFP/ir
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