| | |  Business News | May 2009 
Flu Epidemic has Cost Mexico Billions
 Marc Burleigh – Agence France-Presse
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| | A metrobus worker cleans seats as part of a campaign against the flu in Mexico City. Mexico emerged Wednesday from a five-day lockdown, reopening businesses and restaurants shuttered by swine flu, as a second death from the virus was recorded over the border in the United States. (AFP/Omar Torres) | |
Mexico City – Mexico said on Tuesday the swine flu epidemic had ravaged the country's vital tourism industry and cost its economy billions as it looked to reopen shuttered businesses after a five-day shutdown.
Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said the impact of A(H1N1) influenza had been devastating for tourism and put the cost at "close to 0.3 percent" of GDP or 2.3 billion dollars (1.7 billion euros).
Mexicans were eagerly awaiting the resumption of normal business at the end of the emergency shutdown, while the government airlifted home scores of nationals quarantined in China.
Asia's first person-to-person swine flu infection was confirmed by officials in South Korea, who said a nun had caught the disease from her colleague.
President Felipe Calderon said Mexico's response to the epidemic had saved "thousands of lives," while the UN's top health official said the number of people to have contracted the virus had topped 1,000.
Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak, has been eerily quiet since Friday after Calderon urged everyone to stay at home over a five-day holiday weekend.
However the president, in a televised address on Monday night, said it was coming to the point where the country could start returning to normal.
Mexico "has taken the lead in the global battles against the virus... thousands of lives have been saved not only in Mexico but in the world" as a result of his government's containment measures, he said.
Starting Wednesday, Mexico would progressively return to normal activities by reopening its businesses, schools, museums and other venues closed for a week or more, Calderon explained.
"At last," said Ana Maria Rodriguez, a teacher from Mexico City. "We live in the capital, we're not used to being cooped up at home."
Calderon warned against complacency as "this virus is still circulating", and urged people to take precautions such as regular hand-washing.
And in a sign of the continued wariness, Mexico's football federation said the last nine matches of the championship would be played behind closed doors.
The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday the number of people confirmed to have been infected with the swine flu virus has reached 1,419, including 30 who have died from the disease.
In the United States, however, officials said the number of confirmed cases of swine flu jumped to 403 from 286 the previous day.
"In this situation, it's critical that we continue to maintain and strengthen our alert and surveillance," said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's acting director-general.
The WHO raised its alert level to level five last Wednesday, which indicates a pandemic is imminent, and the organisation's chief Margaret Chan again raised this week the prospect of it being increased to the maximum of six.
"We don't know how long we have till we move to phase six. Six indicates we are in a pandemic. We are not there yet," she said.
The organisation said it had begun sending some 2.4 million courses of anti-viral Tamiflu drugs to 72 countries including Mexico, in an effort to combat the swine flu virus outbreak.
China, the centre of the 2003 SARS outbreak, has come under diplomatic pressure over its hardline efforts to halt the disease in its tracks, including a ban on imported pork from areas hit by swine flu.
Although no cases have been recorded on the Chinese mainland, dozens of Mexicans have been quarantined across the country but they flew home on Tuesday as part of a repatriation deal between the two governments.
At a Shanghai hotel, armed police supervised masked medical staff in protective clothing transferring Mexicans into about 30 ambulances taking them to the airport, state-run media said. In Beijing, eight quarantined Mexicans were taken to the airport and left the capital.
China meanwhile has sent a chartered plane to Mexico to fetch 200 of its own citizens stranded by the flu crisis there, China Southern Airlines said. |
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