CASES GLOBALLY:MEXICO YESTERDAY ordered the shutdown of all non-essential public services as it tried to fight the spread of swine flu.
Meanwhile, a major US food producer denied speculation that one of its farms in Mexico was the source of the disease.
Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president, said only essential businesses such as supermarkets, hospitals and pharmacies should stay open, and only key government health and security workers would be on duty from today until Tuesday.
A nationwide school closure was already in effect. Officials in Mexico City said there was no evidence of an exponential growth in the number of flu victims after the deaths of 176 people which have been linked to the disease.
In the US, Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based food producer, rejected claims in Mexico that a joint venture it runs in Veracruz was the source of the H1N1 virus that had spread to 12 countries by yesterday. Chief executive C Larry Pope wrote to employees saying that Mexican authorities had found no evidence of the virus at the Veracruz farm, where the herd was routinely vaccinated.
The World Organisation for Animal Health said the virus was spreading person-to-person and there was no reason to cull pigs.
New cases reported in Europe yesterday brought the total to more than 20 in six countries, including one each in Switzerland and the Netherlands. One suspected Irish case has not yet been confirmed.
In Spain, the worst affected EU state with 13 confirmed cases, Air Europa said it was cutting flights to Mexico by 80 per cent.
All the confirmed cases in Europe can be directly traced back to victims having travelled to Mexico, except in one case in Spain, in which it is thought a member of a carrier’s household caught the disease.
In the US, with 109 mostly mild but confirmed cases of the illness, government officials and President Barack Obama have said they had no plans to close the border with Mexico.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that an aide to the administration, who travelled with an advance delegation to Mexico ahead of the president’s visit last month, suffered from flu symptoms on his return to Washington, which his doctors believe was swine flu. The aide passed the virus to his wife and son but all have since recovered, said Mr Gibbs.
The World Health Organisation said it was distributing part of its stockpile of 3.5 million anti-viral drug doses to southern Africa and other vulnerable regions after warning about the risk of a health infrastructure ill-equipped to deal with the outbreak, coupled with the onset of winter. – (The Financial Times Limited 2009)