Flu spreads to Asia and Italy

Swine flu spread further across the globe yesterday with more cases confirmed in Asia and Europe as well as in Mexico, where the death toll climbed to 16.

In Mexico, where the A(H1N1) virus originated last month, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova confirmed the country's 16th death from the disease.

But he was cautiously optimistic that the outbreak there was stabilising, while in Geneva a senior World Health Organisation official said the severity of the virus in Mexico is still not established.

Mike Ryan, WHO director of global alert and response, also told journalists the next few days will be crucial in establishing the extent of the spread of the flu in Europe.

Most of the Mexican victims had been women, including one who had been pregnant, said Cordova.

Lab tests had also confirmed another 46 cases of the virus, bringing the total number of cases in Mexico to 443, including the dead.

Nevertheless, Cordova told reporters: "It would be hasty to say we have passed the most difficult moment, but I believe we have enough elements to say that we are in a stabilisation phase."

South Korea and Italy confirmed their first cases of the A(H1N1), but both countries said their patients had made swift recoveries.

Italy said a man in his 50s in the central region of Tuscany, had responded well to a week's treatment in hospital in Massa, near Florence and was expected to be discharged tomorrow or Tuesday.

South Korean health officials said their first confirmed case - reportedly a nun - is expected to be discharged from hospital tomorrow.

Hong Kong meanwhile confirmed a 25-year-old Mexican who arrived from Mexico via Shanghai had brought the first case of swine flu into a city living in fear of a repeat of the SARS virus and bird flu outbreaks of recent years.

After the discovery of the case on Friday, police sealed off the hotel in Hong Kong where he had briefly stayed and placed the building and more than 300 guests and staff under a seven-day quarantine.

The case sparked a regional alert, with China immediately ordering health authorities to track down and isolate the man's fellow passengers, while some pharmacies in Hong Kong sold out of face masks.

India and Japan also reported suspected cases, with Japanese authorities saying a four-month-old baby from the US was being tested.

The alarm caused by the flu was evident in Egypt, where a slaughter of the nation's 250,000 pigs began despite the WHO insisting there was no evidence that the animals were transmitting flu to humans.

Benin became the second African country to report a suspected case of the flu as Health Minister Issifou Takpara told AFP that a European woman may have contracted the virus during a trip in Mexico.

British officials confirmed two new cases, bringing the total to 15 - including one person who appeared to have been infected in Britain by someone recently returned from Mexico.

Israel reported a third case, a man recently returned from Mexico, Spain said confirmed cases there had risen from 13 to 15, and German officials said a patient had infected a fellow patient and a nurse, bringing the number of cases there to six.

But health authorities said the world appeared better prepared to fight an epidemic than a few years ago, and vowed that a vaccine was only months away.

Marie-Paule Kieny, its director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research said Friday: "We have no doubt that making a successful vaccine is possible in a relatively short period of time."

She added it might take four to six months.

The WHO raised its alert level to five on a scale of six Wednesday, indicating that a pandemic was imminent.

Some 143 infections are confirmed in the US across 20 states, but officials said the outbreak did not appear to be anywhere near as dangerous as the 1918 flu epidemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

Apart from Mexico, the only other fatality so far has been a Mexican boy visiting relatives in the southern US state of Texas.

Most cases outside Mexico have involved only mild symptoms of the illness treatable with existing flu medicines.

Some experts have suggested the virus may have weakened as it was carried outside the country.