Mexico Shuts Schools Amid Deadly Flu Outbreak

Mexico Shuts Schools Amid Deadly Flu Outbreak: "Mexico Shuts Schools Amid Deadly Flu Outbreak
MARC LACEY and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
NY Times

Friday, April 24, 2009

MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials, scrambling to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 16 people and possibly dozens more in recent weeks, shuttered schools from kindergarten to university for millions of young people in and around the capital on

Friday and urged people with flu symptoms to stay home from work.
“We’re dealing with a new flu virus that constitutes a respiratory epidemic that so far is controllable,” Health Minister Jose Angel
Cordova told reporters late Thursday, after huddling with President Felipe Calderón and other top officials. He said the virus had mutated from pigs and had at some point been transmitted to humans.

Mexico’s flu season is usually over by now, but health officials have noticed a significant spike in flu cases. The World Health Organization reported about 800 cases of flu-like symptoms in Mexico in recent weeks, most of them among healthy young adults, with 57 deaths in Mexico City and 3 in central Mexico."

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