Mexico to begin lifting flu curbs

Restaurants and cafes in Mexico City are to reopen on Wednesday after the country recorded a fall in new cases of the swine flu virus.

Libraries, museums and churches are to follow suit a day later but cinemas, theatres and bars are to remain closed, the mayor's office said.

Government officials are meeting to discuss when schools and businesses across the country can resume work.

UN health officials have warned against international complacency.

While only one death has been reported outside Mexico, where the virus is suspected of claiming 101 lives, the World Health Organization said the real test would come with seasonal flu.

But WHO chief Margaret Chan sought to ease concern that swine flu might develop into a pandemic similar to the Spanish Flu which killed tens of millions at the end of World War I.

"[There is] no indication that we are facing a situation similar to that in 1918," she told reporters on Monday.

A total of 1,003 cases of the virus have been officially reported across 20 countries, she said. Person-to-person transmission has been confirmed in six countries.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the WHO did not plan to raise its pandemic alert to the highest level if the outbreak continued in its current pattern.

About 250 recruits and personnel at an army camp in the western Swiss canton of Fribourg were placed under quarantine after two recruits reported having flu symptoms on Sunday night.

Both recruits were sent to hospital for treatment and tests, the Swiss defence ministry said, without specifying if they had recently visited Mexico. To date, the country has confirmed one swine flu case.

President Felipe Calderon went on national TV on Sunday night to say a nationwide shutdown and an aggressive information campaign appeared to have helped curtail the outbreak in Mexico.

"We have succeeded in detaining or at least slowing the spread of the virus precisely because the measures have been the correct ones," he said.

Swine flu has been confirmed as the cause of 26 deaths in Mexico and 701 people have been infected, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on Monday.

Earlier, he had said the epidemic was "in its phase of decline", having peaked between 23 and 28 April and .

Talking about the possible reopening of schools, he warned it would "not happen just like that". "There will have to be training, preparations for teachers and parents," he told reporters.

Mexico has criticised China for placing in quarantine up to 70 Mexicans, even though they showed no sign of having contracted swine flu.

It said it was sending a plane to Beijing to pick up the Mexicans as China denied it was being discriminatory.

'Not over yet'

In the US, the number of confirmed swine flu cases has risen from 160 to 226, over 30 states. Officials said this was because the results of lab tests were now coming through, rather than because of a new surge in cases.

But an expert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the virus was fairly widespread.

"Virtually all of the United States probably has this virus circulating now," Dr Anne Schuchat said.

"That doesn't mean that everybody's infected but within the communities, the virus has arrived."

She said that although she expected cases to become more severe and to lead to deaths, this in itself would not be unusual as every year 36,000 people died in the US after contracting seasonal flu.

But she warned: "I don't think we're out of the woods yet."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8032582.stm