Battered by an economic slump and rampant drug cartel murders that have sullied its image around the world, Mexico’s swine flu crisis could not have hit the country at a worse moment.
The flu outbreak came out of nowhere and snowballed over the weekend into one of the biggest global health scares in years — just as Mexico’s government has its hands full fighting a high-stakes drugs war and a recession.
Health experts say Mexico is well-prepared for the flu outbreak, which the world’s top epidemiologists are working to contain. But the nation is facing a new dent to its economy and another stain on its reputation.
“Our image is at rock bottom and emotionally this doesn’t help. It makes us feel even more that we are in a bad patch, damn it!” said cultural commentator and socialite Guadalupe Loaeza. “It’s bad. Once you add the economic crisis and the drug cartels, it’s something that’s going to affect us a lot.” Mexico’s aloof but strong-willed President Felipe Calderon has reassured Mexicans that there are ample stocks of antiviral medicine to treat the hundreds infected with swine flu across the country.
But Finance Minister Agustin Carstens admitted the outbreak could hit the economy hard as Mexicans stop shopping, going to the movies and eating out at restaurants, especially in the capital.
While the only deaths have been in Mexico, the flu is spreading with 20 cases confirmed in the United States, six in Canada and possible cases as far afield as Europe, Israel and New Zealand.
Millions of Mexico City’s residents hunkered down in their homes this weekend as government officials say the flu has killed up to 81 people. The federal and city governments have shut schools, bars, nightclubs, concert venues, soccer stadiums and even churches in the capital.
Hotels and beach resorts feared Mexican families could cancel trips planned for a three-day weekend at the start of May. Foreign tourism, which has held up well despite a murderous drug war and widespread street crime, could also slump as fear of catching the new strain of flu spread around the world.
“My friends have been sending me text messages saying ‘Don’t bring this virus home’,” said Polish tourist Wojtek Panczykowski, 27, talking through a surgical face mask.
Mexico has participated in high-level international drills to prepare for pandemics, but the government has been slow to update the world on the flu death toll and not given a clear message to reassure people at home and abroad, analysts said. “The Mexican government is more prepared for this than most people might think,” said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has participated in drills with Mexican health officials.
“I know for a fact they do have the competency to address this issue effectively, but so far there hasn’t been any government official giving any media coverage trying to reassure Americans of that,” he said.
Mexico was riled earlier this year by a US military report that grouped it among “weak and failing states,” after spiraling drug gang violence killed 6,300 people last year. Since then, Mexico has had to reach out for international credit lines as the global economic crisis has slammed its export revenues and battered the peso currency.
Mexico’s economy is already expected to shrink at least 3 percent this year. The peso fell nearly 3 percent in electronic trading late on Sunday as traders reacted to the scale of the flu outbreak.
“Now, like a sign of the Apocalypse, the last thing we needed — an epidemic with the glimmer of a pandemic,” wrote editorialist Hugo Garcia in the daily Milenio, as truckloads of soldiers in surgical masks drove through Mexico City.
