Mexico City tries to contain swine flu

Mexicans reacted with fatalism and confusion, anger and mounting fear at the idea that their capital city may be ground zero for a global epidemic of a new kind of flu – a strange mix of human, pig and bird viruses that has epidemiologists deeply concerned.

Tests show 20 people in Mexico have died of the new swine flu strain, and that 48 other deaths were probably due to the same strain.

The caseload of those sickened has grown to 1,004 nationwide, Mexico’s Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said.

The same virus also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths north of the border, puzzling experts at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Scientists have warned for years about the potential for a pandemic from viruses that mix genetic material from humans and animals.

This outbreak is particularly worrisome because deaths have happened in at least four different regions of Mexico, and because the victims have not been vulnerable infants and elderly.

The most notorious flu pandemic, thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19, also first struck otherwise healthy young adults.

Authorities in the capital Mexico City responded with a sweeping shutdown of public places and events, urging people to stay home if they feel sick and to avoid shaking hands or kissing people on the cheeks.

President Felipe Calderon said his government only discovered the nature of the virus late on Thursday, with the help of international laboratories. “We are doing everything necessary,” he said in a brief statement.

But the government had said for days that its growing flu caseload was nothing unusual, so the sudden turnaround, along with a flurry of warnings from disease experts, left many angry and confused.

Meanwhile the head of the World Health Organisation today arrived in Geneva to oversee the agency’s handling of the swine flu outbreak.

Margaret Chan has broken off a visit to Washington to return to WHO’s headquarters in Switzerland for the emergency.