In what is sure to foster a great sense of panic, and reminscent of the SARS scare six years ago, the EU's health chief has warned against travel to the U.S. and Mexico due to the swine flu outbreak.
This comes as Spain reported the first confirmed case of swine flu in Europe, also the first swine flu case outside of North America.
While Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga., called that advisory unwarranted, noting that only 20 cases had been diagnosed in the United States, Mexico today raised to 100 the number of suspected swine flu deaths in its country.
Only one of the U.S. swine flu cases required hospitalization, and no deaths have been reported.
Surprisingly, those in Mexico who have died of the swine flu were ages 25 to 50, which would be the sector of the population one would normally expect to be most resistant to extreme reactions to such a pathogen.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the World HEalth Organization (WHO) said his agency would decide Tuesday whether to raise the pandemic alert level to 4, which would prompt more travel bans. The WHO has been reluctant historically to take actions that hurt member nations.
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