Mexican authorities today said the official death toll from the A(H1N1) influenza epidemic had risen to 64, with a total of 2,656 confirmed infections, dpa reported. Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said 90 per cent of those infected with the virus reported their first symptoms before April 23, when the presence of a new virus was confirmed and the authorities adopted measures to combat the outbreak. Cordova Villalobos said a case of the new flu was confirmed in Baja California Sur on Wednesday, leaving just one of the country's 32 states, the northern state of Coahuila, without any recorded infections. Earlier, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said during European Union talks in Prague that Mexico expects its economy to quickly recover after the swine flu epidemic. The virus has so far infected more than 6,000 people worldwide and killed around 60, the majority in Mexico. Espinosa said that in combination with the global recession the influenza virus would hurt the Mexican economy, but that the effect would likely be short-lived. "Our infrastructure and production capacity have not been affected by this crisis. This leads me to think that we will be able to recover quickly," Espinosa said through an interpreter after meeting EU leaders in Prague. The swine flu epidemic has chiefly hit Mexico's tourist industry, as visitors have been cancelling trips to the North American country amid fears that the new flu is deadly. However, the new flu variant has so far proved less deadly than initially expected. Espinosa turned the four-day Prague-based meeting of European Union and Latin American officials into a campaign to salvage Mexico's reputation as a tourist destination. "Mexico is a safe country. You can travel to Mexico safely," she reiterated Thursday. Mexico was the epicentre of the epidemic. However, the United States accounted for over half the almost 6,500 confirmed cases of the new influenza A(H1N1) virus, according to figures released Thursday by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The pan-European agency tallied some 6,497 global cases including 3,352 in the United States, 2,446 in Mexico and 389 in Canada. International figures typically lag behind those reported by individual countries due to reporting delays. The number of cases almost doubled to 29 in Panama compared to Wednesday. Costa Rica and Brazil each had eight cases, Colombia had six while El Salvador had four cases, the ECDC said. From the Asia and Pacific region, China reported two new cases raising its total to four, while Thailand reported its first two cases. In Europe there were 222 confirmed infections, including 100 in Spain and 71 in Britain. Beyond the dead in Mexico, three died in the United States and one in Canada.
