Mexico City/Geneva (dpa) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) in
Geneva warned Saturday that the swine influenza in Mexico which has
claimed at least 62 lives could spread to pandemic proportions.
WHO director-general Margaret Chan called the outbreak a "serious
situation" which was being watched closely.
The WHO, reviewing developments, may be having to raise the level
of its alert warning later on in the day, depending on new data and
reports from the region.
Currently the WHO has an alert status of 3 - denoting none, or
very limited, human-to-human transmission - on its scale of 1 to 6.
The alert status 4 indicates evidence of an increase in human-to-
human infection.
Earlier Saturday, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib confirmed a figure
of 62 dead in Mexico while saying that the organisation's Strategic
Health Operations Centre was now involved in the efforts in the
region.
The WHO was in constant contact with health authorities in the
United States, Mexico, and countries in the Latin American region in
monitoring the situation, she said.
On Friday, Mexican authorities had confirmed the deaths of 20
people due to swine influenza over the past three weeks, while a
further 48 deaths were suspected from the disease.
Amid other actions, Mexico City closed its schools and President
Felipe Calderon cancelled a visit to the northern city of Ciudad
Juarez.
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said that
the WHO was sending experts, technical support and medicine to
Mexico, to assist the authorities in controlling what the minister
defined as a "controlled epidemic."
However, he stressed that Mexico has enough medication to combat
the virus.
"We have fully identified the type of virus, and we have anti-
viral drugs," he said.
Cordova Villalobos said the virus is transmitted from one human to
another, and noted that there were 1,004 cases of infections across
the country.
On Mexico's northern border, the US states of California and Texas
have reported eight cases of swine flu since March, but no deaths as
of yet, the US Centers for Disease Control said Friday. Villalobos
said.
Copyright 2009 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH