The next big flu?: Police officers patrol the streets of Mexico City wearing masks to ward off infection by the new multi-strain swine flu virus.
Credit: AFP
Of the 1,364 people treated for suspected swine flu, 929 of them – or 67 per cent – have been discharged, Calderon said, adding that the country had the necessary drug stock piles to fight the virus.
Zoos joined schools, museums, theaters and music festivals which have closed down, and authorities sought to shut down bars and nightclubs.
The World Bank announced a US$ 205-million loan to help Mexico fight the virus, including 25 million dollars available immediately in order to "get medicines and medical equipment to detect and diagnose" the virus outbreak, said Mexican Finance Minister Agustin Carstens.
New Zealand
"This virus has clearly a pandemic potential," WHO director general Margaret Chan warned on Saturday.
On CNN, senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett was asked if Obama had tested negative for swine flu after he paid his first official visit to Mexico just over a week ago. "He's fine. He is just fine," she said without elaborating.
Asian health officials also went on alert as the flu strain appeared to have spread to New Zealand.
Governments across the region, which has in recent years been at the forefront of the SARS and bird flu epidemics, stepped up checks at airports and urged the public to be on guard for symptoms of the new flu.
Ten New Zealand students who recently traveled to Mexico are "likely" to have contracted swine fever, Health Minister Tony Ryall said – the first suspected cases in the region of more than three billion people.
Two people were admitted to an Australian hospital with flu symptoms after returning from Mexico and are being checked for swine flu, officials said Monday.
Meat imports
Nine people in Colombia were placed under observation after they arrived from Mexico with flu symptoms, and Spain screened all passengers arriving off flights from Mexico on Sunday and tested eight suspected cases of swine fever as fear spread through Europe.
In the first suspected swine flu case in the Middle East, a 26-year-old Israeli man has been hospitalized in Netanya on returning from Mexico.
Russia banned meat imports from Mexico, several U.S. states and nine Latin American nations, a spokesman for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. U.S. officials have said it is impossible to catch the flu from eating meat.
According to the WHO, pigs have already been factors in the appearance of two previously unknown diseases that gave rise to pandemics in the last century.
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