The swine influenza outbreak in Mexico claimed its ninth life Tuesday as H1N1 continues to account for 90 percent of detected cases of flu in the country. According to Big Pond News, the total confirmed number of swine flu cases in the country currently totals 573.
That’s up by more than 200 cases since last Thursday, when the total reached 333. Still, Mexican health authorities are denying that the situation constitutes an emergency. They have been tracking the outbreak’s progress since December.
The Associated Press reported that the federal education ministry was planning to screen elementary school children for H1N1 Wednesday, but later retracted and said it would only screen children who exhibited symptoms of the virus. A few schools in Mexico City have closed due to the threat, but the government emphasized that they were private schools and the closures were not the result of government action.
The outbreak is a resurgence of the H1N1 virus that first hit Mexico and the United States in April 2009. In that strain, more than 1,250 Mexicans died before the World Health Organization declared the pandemic over in 2010.
In the United States, a different strain of swine flu is taking root. While H1N1 is now considered a seasonal flu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are preparing for a strain known as H3N2.
