Amid continued flu concerns, detection measures tightened at Turkish airports

Mexico's flu outbreak appeared to be easing with a fall in serious cases, the government said, but world health officials warned the unpredictable virus could still become a pandemic. "Each day there are fewer serious cases and the mortality has been decreasing," Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told a news conference in Mexico City, where millions were heeding government advice to stay at home. Of the more than 100 suspected deaths from the new H1N1 virus that have emerged in Mexico, 19 had been confirmed, Cordova said. Mexico had already scaled back from its original estimate of 176 suspected deaths. However, new cases of the mongrel virus, which mixes swine, avian and human flu strains, were still being tracked across the world. Costa Rica, Italy and Ireland confirmed cases of the disease, which has now been found in 18 countries. In Geneva, the World Health Organization said the H1N1 influenza had not spread in a sustained way outside North America, as required before the pandemic alert is raised to its highest level. But it said that would probably happen soon. In related news, Health Minister Recep Akdag late last week conducted inspections of measures taken at Istanbul Ataturk Airport against possible carriers of the disease. Akdag was briefed by airport officials and saw personnel use thermal cameras to measure the body temperatures of passengers arriving on a flight from Spain. Any traveler arriving at the airport whose temperature is found to be unusually high then has their temperature taken using a second aural device. He later told reporters that thermal cameras can detect whether a person's body temperature is above 38.5 degrees Celsius. He explained that cameras were only used for scanning purposes and that officials take the utmost care not to cause passengers any discomfort. "We are planning to increase the number of these devices to 10. Currently, they are installed in three locations," he said, adding that there are two thermal cameras at the two airports in Istanbul and one at Esenboga in Ankara. Akdag indicated that they are planning to install one thermal camera each in the Izmir, Dalaman and Bodrum airports, and two at the airport in Antalya. They may consider having additional cameras in airports with a high number of arrivals such as at Istanbul Ataturk Airport. He maintained that Turkey is one step ahead of the World Health Organization (WHO) on efforts to contain the spread of the swine flu virus. "The WHO advices that this practice (use of thermal cameras) should be applied to arrivals from the countries where this disease first broke out, but we apply it to all arrivals," he said. Suggesting that these measures may help to identify infected individuals entering the country, Akdag pointed to the disease's incubation period. "Currently, there is no case of swine flu in Turkey," he said. "People shouldn't be worried about catching the virus if they haven't visited a foreign country or been in contact with a person coming from abroad, even if they have the symptoms of flu or the common cold."