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MEXICO CITY : Mexico is getting on top of the A(H1N1) influenza epidemic, its president has declared, even as the head of the WHO warned a second wave of the potentially deadly virus could strike "with a vengeance".
President Felipe Calderon said in an interview broadcast late Sunday that Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak where 22 people have died, had managed "to contain the epidemic" that has affected 18 countries in total.
"We are in a position to overcome" the H1N1 flu virus", Calderon said in an interview broadcast on state television and radio.
"We have been able to hold or at least reduce the rate of propagation of the virus to contain the epidemic," he said, adding there were 568 infected people in the country, not including those who had died.
His health minister, Jose Angel Cordova, had earlier told a news conference the epidemic was "in its phase of decline", adding that it had peaked between April 23 and 28.
Cordova also said a wide-ranging shutdown of public areas in Mexico City such as restaurants, cafes, bars, clubs, cinemas, theatres and gyms was likely to be lifted Wednesday amid concerns the lockdown was hurting Mexico's economy.
But the news coming out of Mexico City contrasted sharply with an interview published Monday with the chief of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, who said declining mortality rates did not mean the worst was over.
Chan told Britain's Financial Times that a second wave of the virus "would be the biggest of all outbreaks the world has faced in the 21st century".
"We hope the virus fizzles out, because if it doesn't we are heading for a big outbreak," she was quoted as saying.
"I'm not predicting the pandemic will blow up, but if I miss it and we don't prepare, I fail. I'd rather over-prepare than not prepare."
A total of 23 people have died, 22 of them in Mexico, and the WHO estimates nearly 900 cases of infections in the global flu crisis.
In China, Beijing on Monday attempted to head off a diplomatic spat with Mexico, denying it was discriminating against Mexican nationals in China.
There has been one confirmed case of A (H1N1) flu in China so far -- a Mexican man detected in the southern territory of Hong Kong. It was the first definite case in Asia.
Mexican diplomats on Sunday complained bitterly about the treatment of their countrymen, saying dozens had been placed under quarantine despite showing no signs of the H1N1 flu.
China answered the allegations on Monday, with foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu saying in a statement posted on the ministry's website: "The relevant measures are not directed at Mexican citizens and are not discriminatory."
A Mexican embassy official told AFP late Sunday there were nearly 70 Mexicans quarantined across China including in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou.
The WHO has issued a level five warning, but on Sunday warned that it could soon raise its global pandemic alert level to a maximum of six and stressed that any fresh outbreaks of the virus in pigs must be contained and monitored.
The global body pointed to the risk of further spread in humans after a herd of pigs in Canada was infected with the H1N1 flu strain, believed to be the first instance of human to swine transmission, Canadian authorities said.
Top officials in the United States, where the illness was confirmed in more than half of the country's 50 states, also continue to be more guarded than their counterparts in Mexico.
They said while the United States may have escaped the worst of the H1N1 virus outbreak, the real test could come when seasonal flu becomes a factor in a few months.
- AFP/vm
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