MEXICO CITY (AFP) — World health authorities worked on Sunday to contain a deadly swine flu blamed for dozens of deaths in Mexico as new suspected cases triggered fears the disease may be spreading around the globe.
Mexican authorities have confirmed 20 people have died from the new multi-strain swine flu, adding the death toll may now be as high as 81.
Suspected cases of the flu were being tested in Europe, the Middle East and Asia on Sunday as US health officials confirmed at least 10 people have been infected across the border from Mexico in the United States.
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was due to give a White House briefing on the situation at 12:30 pm (1630 GMT).
In a statement, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was recommending that all nations "intensify surveillance for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia."
In Mexico where 1,324 people are being treated for flu symptoms, thousands of people have begun wearing blue face masks to ward off infection.
And Catholic church officials took the highly unusual action of canceling Sunday services, which typically fill the pews in this 90-percent Catholic country.
"All of the priests have been ordered to put in place the decision by Cardinal Norberto Rivera suspending mass," Mexico's Archbishop Jose de Jesus Aguilar told local television here.
The outbreak cast a pall over the country on what is usually one of the liveliest days of the week, with soccer pitches eerily quiet, and museum and theaters to remain shuttered indefinitely.
President Felipe Calderon published an order giving his government extraordinary powers to tackle the deadly outbreak.
And more than 500 cultural and athletic events have been scuttled by government order Sunday in the capital city alone, as authorities banned large gatherings for at least 10 days.
"This virus has clearly a pandemic potential," World Health Organization (WHO) director general, Margaret Chan, warned on Saturday.
The Geneva-based UN agency branded the outbreak "a public health emergency of international concern," following a meeting of its emergency committee.
Russia, fearing the spread of swine flu, on Sunday banned meat imports from Mexico, several US states and nine Latin American nations, a spokesman for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.
And Asian health officials went on alert as the flu strain appeared to have spread to New Zealand.
Governments across the region, which has in recent years been at the forefront of the SARS and bird flu epidemics, stepped up checks at airports and urged the public to be on guard for symptoms of the new multi-strain flu.
Ten New Zealand students who recently travelled to Mexico are "likely" to have contracted swine fever, Health Minister Tony Ryall said on Sunday -- the first suspected cases in the region of more than three billion people.
In the first suspected swine flu case in the Middle East, a 26-year-old Israeli man has been hospitalized in Netanya on returning from Mexico, hospital officials told AFP.
In the United States two cases have been confirmed in Kansas, while eight young students from New York have also been diagnosed with the flu strain.
In London, a hospital announced that a British Airways steward admitted with "flu-like symptoms" after arriving on a flight from Mexico City had tested negative.
"The most worrying fact is that it appears to transmit from human to human," said WHO spokesman Thomas Abraham.
These features, along with the fact that young healthy adults have fallen victim to the flu in Mexico, and not the very old or very young, have given rise to fears of an epidemic or even a pandemic.
According to the WHO, pigs have already been factors in the appearance of two previously unknown diseases that gave rise to pandemics in the last century.
If a pig is simultaneously infected with a human and an avian influenza virus, it can serve as a "mixing vessel" for the two viruses that could combine to create a new, more virulent strain.
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