Mexico has responded to the outbreak by shutting down all schools nationwide for more than a week and placing limits on public gatherings. The European Union has urged travelers to avoid the United States and Mexico “unless it is very urgent for them.” Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control, criticized the EU travel warning.

Richard Besser: “Based on the situation in the United States right now, I think it is quite premature to put travel restrictions on people coming to the United States. We have twenty cases of swine flu. We’re doing active surveillance. So far, we’ve seen one hospitalization.”

Researchers believe the outbreak of swine flu may have occurred near a Mexican factory pork farm partly owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, the largest producer of hogs in the United States. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned poor nations may be hit particularly hard by the flu outbreak.

Ban Ki-moon: “The swine flu outbreak shows yet again that in our interconnected world no nation can deal with threats of such dimension on its own. Poor nations are especially vulnerable. They have been hit hard by other crises this year, of food, energy, the global economy, climate change. We must ensure that they are not also hit disproportionately hard by a potential health crisis.”