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Health See other Health Articles Title: Mexican swine flu spreads to U.S., Europe (103 deaths) MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Governments around the world rushed to reduce the impact of a possible flu pandemic on Monday, as a virus that has killed 103 people in Mexico and spread to the United States and Canada also reached Europe. While the virus has so far killed no one outside Mexico, it has proved it can spread quickly between humans, raising fears that the world may be facing the flu pandemic that scientists say is long overdue. The World Health Organization said its emergency committee could decide to raise its pandemic alert level, currently at 3 on a scale of 1 to 6, to phase 4 or 5. The move would show the WHO believes that large outbreaks are possible. The U.S. government has already declared a public health emergency and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday urged caution over travel to Mexico, adding that Washington was taking the outbreak "very seriously". The European Union urged citizens to avoid non-essential travel to areas affected by swine flu. Mexico relies heavily on tourism, its third biggest source of foreign currency, and millions of Americans travel to Mexico every year. Oil prices fell more than 3 percent to below $50 a barrel as investors feared a new blow to an already fragile global economy if trade flows are curbed and manufacturing is hit. The MSCI world equity index fell 0.4 percent, although U.S. stocks bounced back from early losses and the Dow Jones industrial average turned higher. The virus is widely being called swine flu although it has components of classic avian, human and swine flu viruses and has not actually been seen in pigs. Spain became the first country in Europe to confirm a case of swine flu when a man who returned from a trip to Mexico last week was found to have the virus. [nLR644791] But his condition, like that of 20 cases identified in the United States and six in Canada, was not serious. A New Zealand teacher and around a dozen students who recently returned from Mexico were also being treated as likely mild swine flu cases. Suspected cases were also reported in Britain, France, Italy and Israel. U.S. President Barack Obama said officials were closely monitoring cases of swine flu but he also tried to ease fears. "This is obviously a cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert. But it is not a cause for alarm," Obama told a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. Many countries have stepped up surveillance at airports and ports, using thermal cameras and sensors to identify people with fever, and the World Health Organization has opened its 24-hour "war room" command center. HEALTH EMERGENCY Although most cases outside Mexico were relatively mild, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she feared there might be U.S. fatalities. In financial markets, travel and leisure stocks such as Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways and British Airways nevertheless fell sharply, whereas makers of drugs and vaccines, such as Roche, were higher. "The threat of the pandemic will add further weakness to global trade," said Justin Urquhart Stewart, investment director at Seven Investment Management in London. "We saw with SARS tangible percentage points knocked off the index, and that was in a buoyant time. Put that in a weaker time and it is likely to be more unpleasant." An outbreak of the SARS respiratory virus in 2003 was largely limited to Southeast Asia and cost the region's economy around 0.6 percent of GDP. The World Bank said last year that a global flu pandemic could cost $3 trillion and cut world GDP by 5 percent. Mexico's peso fell more than 3 percent on Monday and its stock market fell 3.5 percent. MEXICO SLOWS TO A HALT In Mexico, the center of the swine flu outbreak, life has slowed dramatically in cities as schools have been closed and public events called off to slow the spread of the virus. Many in Mexico City spent the weekend hunkered at home or wore blue surgical face masks handed out by truckloads of soldiers to venture out onto strangely hushed streets. The city government considered halting public transport. Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on Sunday that the flu had killed 103 people in Mexico, and about 400 people had been admitted hospital. But he noted that a majority of infected patients had recovered. Health authorities across Asia tried to give reassurance, saying they had enough stockpiles of anti-flu drugs to handle an outbreak. Guan Yi, a virology professor at the University of Hong Kong who helped to fight SARS and bird flu, said a pandemic looked inevitable. "I think the spread of this virus in humans cannot possibly be contained within a short time ... We are counting down to a pandemic."
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