A Mexican toddler in Texas has died of the H1N1 flu strain, the first confirmed death outside Mexico from a virus which health officials fear could cause a pandemic as it spread to two more countries in Europe.

Nearly a week after the threat emerged in Mexico, where up to 159 people have died, U.S. officials said on Wednesday a 23-month-old boy had died in the state bordering Mexico.

A Houston city health official said the baby was Mexican, fell ill two weeks ago in the U.S. border town of Brownsville and died in a Houston hospital.

“It is important for everyone to know that while the death occurred here in Houston ... this child is a resident of Mexico who traveled to Texas to visit family,” said Dr. David Persse, Houston emergency medical services director. He said the boy’s family “are healthy and well and have not had any symptoms.”

Richard Besser, acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he expected more bad news even though most of the 65 U.S. cases of swine flu were mild.

“We’re going to find more cases. We’re going to find more severe cases and I expect that we’ll continue to see additional deaths,” he said.

President Barack Obama, who on Tuesday asked for $1.5 billion in emergency funding to fight the disease, said the death showed it was time to take “utmost precautions” against the virus.

Germany reported its first three infections and Austria one, taking to nine the number of countries known to be affected.

TOURISM HIT

France said it would seek on Thursday a European Union ban on flights to Mexico because of the influenza outbreak. Argentina and Cuba have already banned them.

The EU, the United States and Canada have advised against non-essential travel to the popular tourist destination.

Like the toddler in the United States, all seven new cases in Europe had recently been in Mexico.

They comprised a Bavarian couple in their 30s, a 22-year-old woman from Hamburg, a 28-year-old Austrian, now recovering, and three Britons with mild symptoms - adults in London and Birmingham and a girl aged 12 in southwest England.

Cases have been confirmed in Canada, New Zealand, Israel and Spain. In the United States, a state health official in Massachusetts confirmed that two children had tested positive for the virus.

The World Health Organization said it might raise its pandemic alert level to phase five - the second highest - if it were confirmed that infected people in at least two countries were spreading the disease to other people in a sustained way.

Before the U.S. death was reported, Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director for health security and environment, said it could be a “very mild pandemic,” adding, however, that influenza “moves in ways we cannot predict.”

H1N1 swine flu poses the biggest risk of a large-scale pandemic since avian flu re-emerged in 2003, killing 257 people of 421 infected in 15 countries. In 1968 a “Hong Kong” flu pandemic killed about 1 million people globally, with twice that number dying a decade earlier.

Wall Street opened higher on Wednesday even as data showed the U.S. economy shrank at a steeper pace than expected and traders looked beyond flu fears for hopeful signs that the recession may be abating. Shares in Europe and Asia and Europe also rose on Wednesday. However, considerable market uncertainty remained.

The new strain contains DNA from avian, swine and human viruses and appears to have evolved the ability to pass easily from one person to another, unlike most swine H1N1 viruses. It cannot be caught from eating pig meat products but Egypt ordered all its pigs to be slaughtered and some countries, led by Russia and China, have banned U.S. pork imports.

The World Trade Organization said on Wednesday it had not been told officially of any such bans, and the EU and Japan said they would not follow suit.

DIFFERENT PATTERN

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said more than 1,300 people were in hospitals, some of them seriously ill, out of a total of about 2,500 suspected cases.

“In the last few days there has been a decline (in cases),” he said. “The death figures have remained more or less stable.”

Victims included young adults, a different pattern from common seasonal flu that mainly kills the elderly and infirm. It kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in a normal year, including healthy children in rich countries.

Health agencies advise frequent hand-washing and covering sneezes and coughs to help stop the spread. Experts generally agree that face masks, especially the surgical masks seen on the streets of Mexico City, offer little protection.

The outbreak has deeply affected life in Mexico and ravaged tourism, a key earner.

Mexico City was unusually quiet, with schools closed. Many parents took their children in to work.

All Mayan ruins and Aztec pyramids, dotted through central and southern Mexico, were closed until further notice.

Cruise firms Carnival and Royal Caribbean said they were temporarily suspending port calls in the country and land-based tour groups were calling off trips.

In a sign of how mild many cases outside Mexico have been, New Zealand gave the all-clear for a group of students and a teacher who caught the virus.

Russia said it would retain bans imposed on raw pork from countries affected by the virus until June 1 despite complaints from U.S. officials who say pork, soybean and corn prices have fallen due to what they called illogical trade restrictions on pork.

By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON (Reuters)