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Swine flu outbreak raises Mexico travel concerns: Updated
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People wearing protective face masks stand outside a hospital in Toluca, Mexico, Sunday, April 26, 2009. A fatal strain of swine flu has been detected in Mexico and experts fear it could become a global epidemic. (AP Photo/Miguel Tovar)
International health officials are cautioning against travel to Mexico in the wake of the swine flu outbreak there.
As of Monday afternoon, the virus had been blamed for the deaths of 149 people in Mexico. Forty cases had been confirmed in the U.S., including 28 among New York City high school students. News reports have linked the New York outbreak to a spring break trip to Cancun. However, as of this weekend, no swine flu cases had been confirmed in Cancun or the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancun is located.
In a radio and television message Sunday evening, Ivonne Ortega Pacheco, governor of the Yucatàn state that neighbors Cancun, announced the suspension of large public events in the Yucatàn due to the swine flu, though she asked residents not to be alarmed. The Novedadas Quintana Roo newspaper reported that the governor was taking the action as a precaution to guarantee the security of Yucatàn residents, even though no cases of the swine flu had been reported there.
Most of the more than 1,600 swine flu cases confirmed in Mexico were in Mexico City and the surrounding area. Many shops were closed in the capital city and street activity is down drastically. Four swine flu cases had been confirmed in Mexicali, on the California border.
Bars and night clubs in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco were ordered closed by the mayor. The AP reported Manuel Anorve Banos took the action out of concern that Mexico City tourists would spread the flu to his community. Nightspots in Puerto Vallarta also were ordered closed by the governor of the state of Jalisco.
In the Yucatàn, schools remained open Monday and government services continued as normal. Schools have been closed in five Mexican states.
According to the BBC, European Union Health Commissioner Androulla Vasilliou has advised residents of EU countries not to travel to Mexico unless it is “very urgent” that they do so. The World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee convened Saturday and determined that the swine flu outbreak constituted a “public health emergency of international concern,” and, as such, advised all countries to intensify surveillance efforts of flu and pneumonia cases.
Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta advised Americans to put off all "nonessential travel" to Mexico.
Mexico is already under a travel alert posted by the U.S. State Department two months ago due to increasing crime and violence in the country related to the trafficking of illegal drugs.
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