Mexico Prepares to Lower Alert as Flu Subsides

Citing an ebb in the number of swine flu cases, Mexican officials said Monday that they would lower the public alert against the virus and allow most of the nation’s businesses to reopen this week, even as the outbreak, which appears to have started in Mexico, continued its spread worldwide. Across the country, factories and offices will reopen, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said in a news conference. A decision has not yet been made to reopen schools, which have remained shuttered for well over a week. The number of new cases is declining in Mexico, he said, and no deaths have been reported since April 29.Swine flu is now widespread in the United States, officials said, and continues to spread globally, the World Health Organization reported Monday. There are now 985 laboratory confirmed cases in 20 countries. On Sunday, there were 898 confirmed cases in 18 countries.Colombia and El Salvador were the latest countries to join the W.H.O. list, which is topped by Mexico, with 60 percent of the world’s total confirmed cases, and the United States, with 23 percent of the total.

Spain remains the most affected country in Europe, with the health ministry saying Monday that the number of flu cases there had risen to 54. But there was no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission of the flu anywhere in Europe, where all but one of the cases have been mild, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control reported.The lack of sustained transmission outside of Mexico and the United States, has kept the World Health Organization from declaring a full-scale pandemic, but officials there have warned nations to not let down their guard.

The good news, Dr. Schuchat said, is that most cases in the United States have been mild, and health officials in Mexico said that cases there seemed to be leveling off. But Dr. Schuchat said, “I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.”She said the virus had a number of unusual features that were cause for concern. It has flared up at a time of year when the flu season is normally ending. It is new, so people probably have little or no resistance to it. And unlike the common types of seasonal flu, it appears to infect an unusually high percentage of young people. The median age of patients is 17. Dr. Schuchat said scientists at the C.D.C. were preparing a “seed stock” from virus samples that could be used for a vaccine. The possibility that H1N1 might be passed back and forth between humans and pigs was discussed at a World Health Organization news teleconference from Geneva on Sunday. Canadian officials reported on Saturday that an infected farm worker had spread the virus to pigs in Alberta.


Opinion: I believe that Mexico is taking the correct steps, towards correcting this obvious dangerous epidemic that is affecting many people throughout the World. It is important to create calmness within the public, so that activities can resume in the state of Mexico. Since a major part of the Mexican economy is based off tourism, allowing people to travel back without the fear of contracting the H1N1 virus, is especially important. Mexican President Felipe Calderon had already ordered a economic shutdown of all activities, in hopes of stemming the virus in its tracks. It is steps like these that Mexico should slowly progress on, to rid the world of the virus, especially so that this virus does not progress to be of a danger level such as the SARS virus in 2003.