MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - New laboratory data showed fewer people have died in Mexico than first thought from a deadly new influenza strain, a glint of good news for a world rattled by the threat of a flu pandemic. Mexico cut its suspected death toll from the H1N1 flu to up to 101 from as many as 176, as dozens of test samples came back negative. Fewer patients with severe flu symptoms were also checking into hospitals, suggesting the infection rate of a flu that has spread to Europe and Asia was declining.
South Korea confirmed its first H1N1 case on Saturday, a 51-year-old woman who returned from Mexico in mid-April. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed the outbreak may not be as severe as it looked a few days ago, citing many mild cases that were not immediately noticed.
For Mexicans -- who are spending a second weekend stuck indoors with stores and businesses shuttered across the country and the capital, Mexico City, devoid of its lively restaurants, bars, cinemas and museums -- the data is cheering. Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova acknowledged the numbers were encouraging but cautioned it was too early to say Mexico had control of a flu that has infected people in 15 countries.
"For now it's unpredictable," Cordova said late on Friday, noting epidemics can peak again after an initial spurt in infections drops off.
"We need more days to see how it behaves and whether there is really a sustained decline so we can conclude that it's going down," he said.
The new virus is only the third infectious disease experts regard as having pandemic potential in the past 10 years. It has world health experts racing to work on a vaccine and is wreaking havoc with a travel industry that flies hundreds of thousands of people to and from Mexico each week.
China suspended flights to Mexico after Hong Kong authorities on Friday confirmed a Mexican man who flew via the Chinese mainland was infected with the flu strain.
Police in surgical masks quarantined 200 guests and 100 staff inside a Hong Kong hotel where the 25-year-old Mexican had been staying, saying they would be confined for a week.
"They said everybody needed to go back to their rooms. I don't want to go to my room because I want to be out," an Australian man at the hotel told a TV reporter by telephone. The measures taken by the authorities in Hong Kong underscore the concern there about the new flu. Hong Kong was badly hit by the SARS virus in 2003 and has had many episodes of H5N1 bird flu for more than a decade.
Gooky - you can't get swine flu from eating pork :p