| | |  Travel & Outdoors | May 2009 
Tourists Urged to Return to Mexico
 Agence France-Presse
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| | A tourist takes pictures from an empty double decker tour bus as he rides through downtown Mexico City this week. (AP) | |
Mexico's swine flu death toll rose by two to 58 on Tuesday as the health minister said the virus was on the wane at the heart of the epidemic and urged tourists to return.
A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Rapid Pandemic Assessment Collaboration - set to be published Thursday in the journal Science - has estimated that 23,000 people had been infected by the virus in Mexico.
Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said the last recorded A(H1N1) death was on May 7, and 2,224 cases were being treated here.
Cases have now been recorded in 30 of the country's 32 states, with most in Mexico City.
Cordova said cases were diminishing, however, since a peak at the end of April, and underlined that several top beach resorts, including Cozumel on the east coast and Puerto Vallarta on the west coast, had not registered at all.
"Tourist destinations are safe in Mexico, people can return calmly, we are carrying out intensive checks," Cordova said.
Cordova said on Monday that three foreigners - one Scot and two from the United States - were among more than 2,000 swine flu cases identified in Mexico, including two who had been in the Caribbean beach resort of Cancun.
Hotel occupancy has sunk across the country due to the crisis and 25 hotels have temporarily closed in and around Cancun, local officials said Monday.
Hotels in the area on Tuesday offered free vacations for three years to any tourist catching swine flu while on holiday there in a bid to counter the blow to the industry.
The flu's impact was expected to cost Mexico's economy around $US2.3 billion ($A3.03 billion) - around 0.3 per cent of gross domestic product - and Mexico on Monday unveiled a $US1.06 billion ($A1.4 billion) business support program to help counter the damage.
The epidemic has sparked tensions with countries which imposed bans on Mexican pork, cancelled flights to Mexico or, as with China, quarantined Mexicans.
A spat with Cuba grew Tuesday after former leader Fidel Castro accused Mexico's government of keeping the flu under wraps during a visit to Mexico last month by US President Barack Obama.
The Mexican health minister on Tuesday denied that Mexico had ever hidden information about the flu.
Cuba last month suspended direct flights to Mexico, prompting Mexican President Felipe Calderon to suggest he might cancel a planned trip to the Caribbean island.
Cuba confirmed its first A(H1N1) case, carried by a Mexican student, on Monday.
Mexico is still struggling to get back to normal. Six states kept their schools shut this week, as well as bars and restaurants in some cases, amid further flu fears. |
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