Mexico flu sparks pandemic fear
Updated on 26 April 2009
A new strain of flu which has killed 81 people in Mexico and is spreading quickly has prompted worldwide fear.
The United States has declared a public health emergency tonight as a precaution - as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed across the country.
Stocks of antiviral drugs are being released to fight any potential spread of the disease.
In Scotland two people just back from Mexico with flu-like symptoms have been admitted to hosptial as a precaution.
However experts told Channel 4 News that it was too soon to say whether the strain would develop into a global pandemic.
Swine flu has always caused occasional outbreaks in humans, when people working closely with pigs are infected. It has been particularly common in the USA and Mexico.
However this infection is spreading fast which is why it is causing consternation that it could become a pandemic in the mould of the devastating Spanish flu of 1918.
On the other hand, it could turn out to be a re-run of the panic that bird flu caused in 2005, without ever developing into the mass infection that some expected.
