Scores of public buildings were closed in Mexico City in a bid to contain the illness [AFP]
Scores of public buildings were closed in Mexico City in a bid to contain the illness [AFP]
Jose Angel Cordova told a news conference on Friday that the rate of deaths appeared to be slowing and there were no plans to seal the country's borders, although schools, libraries, museums, theatres were closed in a bid to contain the disease.
An outbreak of swine flu in Mexico has killed 20 people and sickened more than 1,000 others, the country's health minister has said.
Meanwhile, US public health officials on Thursday said that eight people had been diagnosed with swine flu in the states of California and Texas.
Tests on Friday by the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed the virus from 12 of the Mexican patients was the same genetically as a new strain of swine flu, designated H1N1, seen in the US patients, AFP reported.
Initial reports from the WHO said that up to 60 people had died in Mexico from the disease, and Cordova said 40 deaths were being "analysed" for the disease.
US officials said the White House was closely following the outbreak in the United States and Barack Obama, the president, has been informed.
The officials said the virus in the United States was a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans.
Armando Ahued, Mexico City's health minister, said a massive vaccination campaign was being launched against the illness.
Al Jazeera's Franc Contreras in Mexico City said the authorities had advised people not to go outside unless necessary and that many residents had bought surgical masks in attempt to avoid the disease.
Pandemic fears
The WHO, which has identified swine influenza as a potential source of a human flu pandemic, said it had activated its global epidemic operations centre, which oversees acute public health events in response to the crisis.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the A/H1N1 influenza identified in at least two of the recent cases by US counterparts could develop into a pandemic-type virus.
Human outbreaks of H1N1 swine influenza virus were recorded in the US in 1976 and 1988, when two deaths were recorded, and also in 1986, while in 1988 a pregnant woman died after contact with sick pigs, the WHO said.
In recent years the global focus for a possible pandemic has shifted to the H5N1 bird flu virus, which has spread from poultry to humans and killed 257 of the 421 people infected by the virus since 2003.
According to Mexican health officials, an epidemic of swine flu has killed at least 68 people and infected a further one thousand inside the country.

Mexican health minister José Ángel Córdova said that the casualty rate appeared to be slowing down, and that there would be no plans to block off Mexican borders. “We’re dealing with a new flu virus that constitutes a respiratory epidemic that so far is controllable,” Córdova stated. He said that the disease had mutated from pigs and was transferred to humans at some point.

Museums and schools for seven million students near Mexico's capital were closed down in an effort to curb the epidemic, and the government has encouraged people with symptoms of the disease to take leave from work.

The outbreak has spread north to the United States, and US health authorities have reported that eight people were diagnosed with swine flu in Texas and California. However, these people have recovered.

“We are worried. We don’t know if this will lead to the next pandemic, but we will be monitoring it and taking it seriously,”  said Dr. Richard Besser, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Besser suggested "containment is not very likely" in a telephone briefing on Friday.

Tests conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that the virus from a dozen patients was genetically similar to a new outbreak of swine flu, designated as H1N1.