Anxious to slow the spread of a swine flu epidemic that has now claimed up to 176 victims, the Mexican government is ordering most people to stay home for five days. Companies and government offices non-essential to the economy will be closed beginning Friday.
The order came as the virus spread to a total of 12 countries, including the Netherlands, and soon after the World Health Organization declared a level 5 pandemic alert. Level 5 warns the world to prepare for a pandemic.
Tempering these actions, experts continued to caution that the swine flu in the United States has largely been limited to very mild cases. Most of the people who have developed swine flu have recovered quickly. But experts warn that once the virus spreads to Asia and countries like Indonesia, where bird flu is endemic, the virus could reassort itself once again. A new reassortment introducing avian flu strains could lead to a virus that's more lethal than swine flu and easily spread among people.
"If it goes to Egypt, Indonesia, these H5N1 endemic regions, it could turn into a very powerful H5N1 that is very transmissible among people," said Guan Yi, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong. "Then we will be in trouble, it will be a tragedy."
- read the article from the New York Times
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