Mexico prepares for second swine flu round

1 Sep 2009, 9:47 am   -   Source: AP
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The Mexican health ministry wants to err on the side of caution this flu season. (Getty images)

The Mexican health ministry wants to err on the side of caution this flu season. (Getty images)

Mexico wants to make sure it doesn't repeat the mistakes it made last spring as the Northern Hemisphere flu season begins.

Mexico is preparing for a second wave of swine flu, looking at what worked and what didn't last spring when it banned everything from dining out to attending school in an effort to control the virus.

As the Northern Hemisphere flu season begins, the rest of the world is also studying Mexico's experience, looking for measures to replicate and costly mistakes to avoid.

When swine flu first flared up in Mexico in April, the government erred on the side of caution, closing schools and museums, banning public gatherings, playing soccer games to empty stadiums and telling people not to shake hands or kiss one another on the cheek.

As a result bustling Mexico City, home to 18 million residents, was left eerily quiet.

"Since we were the first country affected by the flu, we didn't know the possible magnitude and severity, so we took measures that we now know can be focalised (focused)," the Health Secretary's special influenza adviser Dr Pablo Kuri said recently.

In hindsight, Mexico's most effective action, one now emulated around the world, was immediately telling its own citizens when the new virus was detected.

Not every country has been so candid when facing an epidemic: China was heavily criticised for its slow response to SARS in 2003, while Argentina refused to declare a national public health emergency when swine flu flared there in July.

However Mexico's openness didn't come cheap.

Economists say the outbreak cost the country billions of dollars, mostly in losses from tourism.

At the height of the epidemic in March, you could hardly make it a block in Mexico City without a masked public health worker, bus driver or store owner squeezing antiseptic gel onto your hands.

Health experts say hand-washing offered the best defence, while the masks probably did little to stop the virus from spreading.

Masks are now advised only for health care workers and people who are already infected.

Fear also left behind a cleaner city.

Crews now regularly scrub subways and buses, park benches and offices something almost unheard of before the epidemic.

The vaccine is currently in the testing stage, and millions of doses could be available to the public by mid-October.

Many researchers studying swine flu believe there will be many more cases in the Northern Hemisphere than there were in the spring, possibly taxing Mexico's already overextended public health care system and its airport security procedures.

"At this point, we have the instructions from the federal government to not let down our guard even though the alert has gone down a lot"  Mexico City International Airport spokesman Victor Mejia said on Wednesday.

"We haven't discounted that in the next months experts are predicting that there will be a new outbreak."

Medical experts say most people do not need to be treated for swine flu, but those who do - pregnant women, asthmatics and people who are obese - must be treated quickly, within 48 hours of the first symptoms.

Many Mexicans wait until they suffer full-blown symptoms before going to a doctor, if at all.

Often, people self-diagnose and go to a pharmacy to treat themselves since few drugs require a prescription.

Since April, however, certain anti-flu drugs are distributed only at hospitals.

In late August, millions of uniformed Mexican children returned to classes.

Administrators are now preparing to impose 'school filters', a system for checking possible signs of swine flu among children and teachers and sending home anyone who seems sick.

Nationwide, Mexico's schools have added new curriculum guidelines to ensure children learn about personal hygiene and basic sanitation.

But schools will be closed this time around only if there are so many sick children or teachers that education is compromised.

Plans are already under way to continue lessons at home.

Despite all the precautions, Mexico's health advisers say the most important lesson they have learned about swine flu is that in most cases, it's fairly mild.

Swine flu caused 164 deaths in three months in Mexico, a country where tobacco-related illnesses kill that number every day.

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