Mexico Reeling from Swine Flu
News coming from Mexico is not good. Mexico suspended all schools nationwide until May 6, extending an order already in place in Mexico City and five of the country’s 32 states. The bottom line, people should stay home if they feel sick.
Labor Secretary Javier Lozano Alarcon is urging employers to isolate anyone showing up for work with fever, cough, sore throat or other symptoms of the virus. As an added precaution the Mexico City government was considering shutting down all public transportation in an effort to keep the death toll from rising. Surgical masks were being distributed at subway and bus stops across the city.
The virus has already spread to half of Mexico and at least a half-dozen other countries. The Mexican government canceled school nationwide and considered closing the capital’s subway system in an effort to eliminate crowds. Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said twenty deaths have been confirmed to be from swine flu and test results were pending on the others.
Life has been disrupted from Tijuana to Acapulco. The disease has hit hardest in the capital, but has also had an effect in the lucrative Pacific resort towns where night clubs and bars were ordered closed until further notice. There are concerns about tourists from Mexico City spreading the disease. Those who live day-to-day have the added worry of making ends meet if the city completely shuts down.
Looming large are the ominous developments Monday in the swine flu epidemic. A leap to 149 deaths and added implications that the virus can hop repeatedly from person to person has prompted the World Health Organization to raise its pandemic alert level, and governments around the world were ratcheting up with tougher measures.
Cordova stated at a news conference in southern Mexico, “We are at the most critical moment of the epidemic. The number of cases will keep rising so we have to reinforce preventive measures,”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the new phase 4 alert means sustained human-to-human transmission is causing outbreaks in at least one country, signaling a significant increase in the risk of a global epidemic. Phase 4 doesn’t necessarily mean a pandemic is unavoidable, but many experts think it may be out of the question to contain a flu virus already spreading in several countries.
Posted in Swine Flu News
