ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

By Agence France Presse (AFP) | Governments around the world rushed to reduce the impact of a possible flu pandemic on Monday, as a virus that has killed up to 149 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 (WHO) 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 US 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. 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. 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.

(photo: AP / Eduardo Verdugo)

Suspected cases were also reported in Britain, France, Italy and Israel.

US 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.

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 US fatalities.

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. 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."

Meanwhile, outbreaks of swine flu have prompted several countries, including Lebanon, to ban the import of pig meat, raising the prospect the disease will add a further protectionist blow to sagging world trade. International trade rules allow countries to restrict or ban imports for health and safety reasons - but this has to be based on scientific evidence.

The WHO has said the swine flu virus cannot be caught from infected pork. "Right now we have no evidence to suggest that people are getting infected from exposure to pork or to pigs so right now we have zero evidence that exposure to meat leads to infection," Keiji Fukuda, acting assistant director-general for health security and environment, said on Sunday. - Reuters

Lebanon bans pork imports

BEIRUT: Lebanon on Monday imposed a ban on pork imports and urged pig farmers across the country to be vigilant in light of an escalating swine flu crisis. "The import of pigs or fresh pork products from any country is banned effective today," the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement. It said the ban does not concern canned pork products. Any pork shipments from countries affected by the swine flu outbreak must be destroyed, the statement added. The ministry said preventive measures in line with recommendations by the World Health Organization are also being implemented and farmers nationwide have been advised to report any incident of animals showing signs of the disease. World health officials on Monday stepped up the battle against swine flu after the Mexican government upped the probable death toll from the epidemic to 103 and the United States declared a public health emergency. Suspected cases are also being investigated in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and six new infections were confirmed in Canada. - AFP