News Service from House Harris

EUR: Worldwide swine flu cases pass 5,000

GENEVA, May 12 AFP - The global number of swine flu cases on Tuesday passed 5,000, according to the World Health Organisation, as the virus spread to three more countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

In a day of mixed updates, Mexico began pumping a $US1 billion ($A1.32 billion) of emergency funds into its sickened economy as officials there revealed tourist cancellations had forced 25 hotels to shut in and around the resort of Cancun.

However, as China tracked down the last of hundreds of passengers who flew with a man confirmed as its first mainland infection, Hong Kong's health chief argued that quarantine was no longer workable.

"As local transmission becomes sustained and significant, isolation and quarantine is no longer appropriate or practicable," York Chow, the territory's health secretary, told reporters.

Around 300 guests and staff - many Mexicans - were held for seven days until last Friday at the Metropark hotel in Hong Kong in a move which drew international criticism.

Beijing, though, was still pursuing isolation Tuesday after a 30-year-old man was hospitalised with the virus after arriving in the southwestern city of Chengdu from the United States.

Authorities said they had traced nearly all those who travelled on flights with the man, while a municipal health official in Beijing told AFP that 78 foreigners were among those quarantined.

After the WHO insisted the outbreak of new influenza A(H1N1) last month would have been more severe had it not raised its pandemic alert two weeks ago, the total number of infections stood at 5,251, its latest data showed.

Three more countries reported their first infections Tuesday,with Thailand and Finland reporting two each after Cuba earlier reported its first case of a Mexican student studying in Havana.

The highest number of cases has been reported in the United States with 2,600 infections, including three deaths, and Mexico with 2,059 cases, including 56 deaths, although the WHO had only confirmed 48 of these.

Mexico's death toll rose by two to 58 on Tuesday but the epidemic there was on the wane, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said, despite schools in six states remaining shut Monday.

Nevertheless, a report by the WHO's Rapid Pandemic Assessment Collaboration, which includes US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientists, estimates that 23,000 people were infected in Mexico.

US health officials also said its confirmed numbers represented just the tip of the iceberg.

"Many states did not report over the weekend, so we expect a big jump in the number of cases tomorrow," said Anne Schuchat, the interim deputy director at the CDC.

Most of the confirmed cases in over 30 countries have proved to be treatable with anti-viral drugs.

Swiss drugs giant Roche said Tuesday it was donating 5.65 million treatment courses of Tamiflu to help fight the swine flu outbreak, although a WHO expert said the virus was developing resistance to the brand.

The WHO's confirmed deaths reached 61 after Costa Rica reported its first fatality from the virus - believed to be a mix of bird and human flu which came together in pigs - and the United States confirmed a third death.

But Thai scientists who infected newborn pigs with the swine flu virus in tests reported that none of the animals died despite the piglets showing symptoms of coughing, sneezing, nasal discharge and conjunctivitis.

The pork meat industry could also take heart from trade data which showed that Brazil's pork exports rose in April for a fifth consecutive month, increasing 10.8 per cent over the same month last year.

Also on a brighter note, a 25-year-old flu-ridden Spanish woman emerged from her sick bed to claim record 126 million euros ($A225.73 million) in a lottery, officials said without specifying whether the strain she had contracted was related.