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Avoid Mexico, Travelers Are Told, as Flu Toll Mounts
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: April 27, 2009
While confirmed cases of swine flu increased only slightly Monday, the World Health Organization voted to raise its global pandemic flu alert level a notch but at the same time recommended that borders not be closed nor travel bans imposed.
Alberto Saiz/Associated Press
Medical staff at a hospital in Valencia, Spain, where a person with possible symptoms of swine flu is being treated.
Graphic
Mexican Tourism, Already Hurt by Violence, Bears Blow of a Health Scare
“Because the virus is already quite widespread in different locations, containment is not a feasible option,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the W.H.O. deputy director general said in raising the alert level to 4, from 3. Instead, health officials should emphasize saving lives, he said.
The W.H.O. also recommended that vaccine-makers keep making seasonal flu vaccine instead of switching over to a pandemic vaccine, though it urged vaccine makers to start picking a pandemic strain, weakening it for vaccine use and process, expected to take up to six months, of making a pandemic vaccine.
But Dr. Fukuda emphasized that the committee felt that “a pandemic is not inevitable the situation is fluid and will continue to evolve.”
American officials said their response to the epidemic is already aggressive and the W.H.O.’s decision would not change their plans.
The agency’s decision offered guidance that could help clear up the confusion that seemed to sweep the world. The European Union appeared to issue and then rescind a ban on travel to the United States, drawing a rebuke from American officials, who themselves then recommended against non-essential travel to Mexico.
The number of deaths blamed on the flu in Mexico climbed to 149, while the number of confirmed cases in the United States doubled to 40, with 28 of them students from one New York City school. None of the American cases have been serious, but Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he “would not rest on that fact.”
“I expect that we will see additional cases and I expect that the spectrum of disease will expand,” he said at a news conference.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 1,600 people in 17 states across Mexico were believed to have been sickened by the virus. Officials in Mexico City had already canceled hundreds of public events and closed many public venues. In Tijuana, soccer officials canceled the remainder of the qualifying tournament for North and Central American teams to get into the Under-17 World Cup.
Mexico City officials have urged people with possible symptoms — headache, cough, sore throat, nausea, fever, dizziness — to stay home. But Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said officials would discuss a further shutdown, which could include public transportation.
Mexican officials said they had traced the origins of the outbreak to a rural area known as La Gloria in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the site of several major pig farms. Officials had initially suspected that the outbreak began in Oaxaca, in the southwestern part of the country. Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be more than month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.
C.D.C. teams are in Mexico to help the authorities there gather data and run diagnostic tests, Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, said on Monday afternoon.
John Brennan, the White House homeland security adviser who appeared at a news conference with Ms. Napolitano, said Mexican officials had been “exceptionally cooperative and forthcoming” in keeping Washington up to date.
Despite assurances from medical authorities that a person cannot catch the flu from eating pork, China and Russia banned imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and three American states that have reported cases of swine flu, according to The Associated Press. Indonesia said it was banning all pork imports, and Lebanon said it was banning all pork and pork products, with the exception of some canned goods.
In Washington, Ms. Napolitano said her department was working closely with the government of Mexico and Canada, which also has confirmed cases, in a “trinational approach” to the flu outbreak. Ms. Napolitano said the department is activating a national stockpile of anti-viral drugs and planning other steps in coordination with private interests “should this erupt into a full-fledged pandemic — which it has not yet, by the way.”
Earlier on Monday, the European Union’s health commissioner urged Europeans to avoid traveling to the United States or Mexico if doing so was not essential.
The warning came as health officials in Spain confirmed that a man hospitalized in eastern Spain had tested positive for swine flu, becoming what appeared to be Europe’s first case of the disease. Health authorities were also testing 17 other suspected cases across Spain, a major hub for travel between Mexico and Europe.
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By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: April 27, 2009
While confirmed cases of swine flu increased only slightly Monday, the World Health Organization voted to raise its global pandemic flu alert level a notch but at the same time recommended that borders not be closed nor travel bans imposed.
Alberto Saiz/Associated Press
Medical staff at a hospital in Valencia, Spain, where a person with possible symptoms of swine flu is being treated.
Graphic Mexican Tourism, Already Hurt by Violence, Bears Blow of a Health Scare
“Because the virus is already quite widespread in different locations, containment is not a feasible option,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the W.H.O. deputy director general said in raising the alert level to 4, from 3. Instead, health officials should emphasize saving lives, he said.
The W.H.O. also recommended that vaccine-makers keep making seasonal flu vaccine instead of switching over to a pandemic vaccine, though it urged vaccine makers to start picking a pandemic strain, weakening it for vaccine use and process, expected to take up to six months, of making a pandemic vaccine.
But Dr. Fukuda emphasized that the committee felt that “a pandemic is not inevitable the situation is fluid and will continue to evolve.”
American officials said their response to the epidemic is already aggressive and the W.H.O.’s decision would not change their plans.
The agency’s decision offered guidance that could help clear up the confusion that seemed to sweep the world. The European Union appeared to issue and then rescind a ban on travel to the United States, drawing a rebuke from American officials, who themselves then recommended against non-essential travel to Mexico.
The number of deaths blamed on the flu in Mexico climbed to 149, while the number of confirmed cases in the United States doubled to 40, with 28 of them students from one New York City school. None of the American cases have been serious, but Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he “would not rest on that fact.”
“I expect that we will see additional cases and I expect that the spectrum of disease will expand,” he said at a news conference.
As of Monday afternoon, more than 1,600 people in 17 states across Mexico were believed to have been sickened by the virus. Officials in Mexico City had already canceled hundreds of public events and closed many public venues. In Tijuana, soccer officials canceled the remainder of the qualifying tournament for North and Central American teams to get into the Under-17 World Cup.
Mexico City officials have urged people with possible symptoms — headache, cough, sore throat, nausea, fever, dizziness — to stay home. But Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said officials would discuss a further shutdown, which could include public transportation.
Mexican officials said they had traced the origins of the outbreak to a rural area known as La Gloria in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the site of several major pig farms. Officials had initially suspected that the outbreak began in Oaxaca, in the southwestern part of the country. Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be more than month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.
C.D.C. teams are in Mexico to help the authorities there gather data and run diagnostic tests, Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, said on Monday afternoon.
John Brennan, the White House homeland security adviser who appeared at a news conference with Ms. Napolitano, said Mexican officials had been “exceptionally cooperative and forthcoming” in keeping Washington up to date.
Despite assurances from medical authorities that a person cannot catch the flu from eating pork, China and Russia banned imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and three American states that have reported cases of swine flu, according to The Associated Press. Indonesia said it was banning all pork imports, and Lebanon said it was banning all pork and pork products, with the exception of some canned goods.
In Washington, Ms. Napolitano said her department was working closely with the government of Mexico and Canada, which also has confirmed cases, in a “trinational approach” to the flu outbreak. Ms. Napolitano said the department is activating a national stockpile of anti-viral drugs and planning other steps in coordination with private interests “should this erupt into a full-fledged pandemic — which it has not yet, by the way.”
Earlier on Monday, the European Union’s health commissioner urged Europeans to avoid traveling to the United States or Mexico if doing so was not essential.
The warning came as health officials in Spain confirmed that a man hospitalized in eastern Spain had tested positive for swine flu, becoming what appeared to be Europe’s first case of the disease. Health authorities were also testing 17 other suspected cases across Spain, a major hub for travel between Mexico and Europe.
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