MEXICO CITY, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Mexico's Health
Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said on Thursday that the government had
confirmed four more deaths from the new strain of A/H1N1 flu virus,
acknowledging that there is a possibility of several very similar flu mutations
now circulating.
The country's total confirmed deaths related to the
new flu have risen to 64, with 2,565 total confirmed infections.
"There have only been opinions and there is no proof
yet that there has been a mutation," said Cordova. "But there has been a
suggestion that one mutation caused the more serious cases and another caused
the cases that are less serious. Both would be within the same family of
viruses," he added.
Some individuals confirmed as having the virus
suffered severe headaches, muscular pain, breathing difficulties and high body
temperatures and faced death if not treated swiftly with oseltamivir, the
antiviral medicine also known as Tamiflu.
However, some others have suffered very mild or even
no symptoms, and have recovered without prescription drugs. The most famous case
of the latter was Edgar Hernandez, a five-year-old boy who suffered the first
confirmed case of A/H1N1 flu, but recovered using only sore throat and
temperature medicine.
Cordova said he would meet with the nation's Finance
Minister Augustin Carstens on Friday to discuss proposals for a flu compensation
fund, possibly backed by the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank.
In an outbreak, "the nation that gives the most
information is the nation that suffers most," Cordova told a press conference.
"Without international support, nations with disease outbreaks are punished for
their honesty," he argued.
At the same press conference, David Karam, head of
state-run health service the Mexican Social Security Agency (IMSS), said that 86
IMSS workers had been infected with the new flu in their work, and that 15 of
them had been hospitalized. All of them have now recovered, he added.
Earlier on Thursday, the World Health Organization
said that there have been 6,497 cases of the new flu across 33 countries and
regions. The nation with the most cases is the United States, with 3,352
confirmed cases and three deaths. Costa Rica and Canada have one confirmed flu
death each.