Mexico to invest 2 billion dollars to combat flu effects (Roundup)

May 5, 2009, 22:08 GMT

Mexico City/Guatemala City - Mexico launched Tuesday a plan to provide more than 2 billion dollars to help alleviate the 'significant impact' of the influenza outbreak on the Mexican economy, while neighbouring Guatemala confirmed one infection with the virus.

Mexican Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said the plan includes fiscal stimuli, measures to promote tourism and loans, in an effort to induce rapid recovery.

The authorities will allow a 20 per cent reduction in employers' contributions to social security in the May-June period, and lowered taxes on restaurants, hotels and entertainment facilities. A tourism promotion fund is to spend about 15 million dollars.

Also included in the plan are 50-per-cent reductions in airlines' operating rights over three months, and a reduction in taxes on cruises and loans for specific sectors, like tourism or pig rearing, worth about 750 million dollars.

Mexico estimates that the impact of the flu will be around 0.3-0.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), and that up to 750 million dollars will be lost in tax income. However, the effect was expected to be short-term and officials were upbeat about a rapid recovery.

'These measures join those that were already in place to face the global crisis,' Carstens said, referring to the worldwide recession.

He hoped that the flu epidemic will no longer be a factor in the economy by the end of the year.

Mexican authorities confirmed Monday that 26 people in the country have died of the new variant of influenza A/H1N1 and said they would start easing restrictions on Wednesday in the epicentre of the global flu outbreak.

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos noted that the number of people who had survived their infections had risen to 840 (compared to 776 the previous day).

The spread of the epidemic has slowed in recent days. The last death in Mexico happened on April 29, and according to the authorities new infections were down by 80 per cent in Mexico City - where 20 of Mexico's 26 deaths of the virus happened. Also Tuesday, officials in the US state of Texas confirmed the death of a woman in her 30s from the illness last week.

The authorities noted that laboratory tests will not be possible for all suspected cases of H1N1 virus, since there are no samples from about one-third of those who have died.

Of a total of 214 deaths of influenza in Mexico in recent weeks, 74 have tested negative for the new virus. Of the remaining 140, 26 have tested positive and 37 are pending testing, while it will not be possible to test samples from a further 77.

Guatemalan authorities confirmed that one 11-year-old girl who returned to the country from Cuernavaca, Mexico last week was found to have the new flu virus. She was said to be stable. The Central American country's medical authorities were distributing anti-viral treatment in hospitals.

According to the latest report from the World Health Organization earlier Tuesday, there were a total of 1,490 human infections in 21 countries.