Medical experts are calling the new influenza virus A(H1N1), but for many Mexicans it is simply a scarlet A.
From Chile, where sports officials declined to host Mexican soccer teams, to China, where the authorities forced even healthy resident Mexicans and Mexican travelers into quarantine, Mexicans say they have been typecast as disease carriers and subjected to humiliating treatment.
In a country of more than 100 million, only several hundred cases of swine flu have been confirmed, and 20 other countries have confirmed cases. But nonstop media coverage of a feared pandemic and the belief that the sometimes fatal virus originated in Mexico — which is disputed by Mexican health experts and officials — have overwhelmed calls by global health authorities to avoid panic while preparing for a broader outbreak.
Scientists have yet to pinpoint the origin of the virus, the earliest cases of which were found in the southwestern United States and in various parts of Mexico. But according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it contains genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs in Europe and Asia, as well as avian and human genes. Some health experts say it also now appears less lethal than once feared.
The most aggressive response has come from China and Hong Kong, still gripped by memories of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS spread widely in 2003 and killed more than 700 people.
On Saturday, Chinese authorities began confining dozens of seemingly healthy Mexicans to hotels and hospitals, even escorting some from their hotels in the middle of the night for testing, Mexican consular officials said Monday.
Chinese officials said they were seeking to isolate passengers on an aircraft that had at least one infected passenger, but the Mexican government accused China of unfairly quarantining its citizens and acting without regard to accepted public health practices.
Mexican diplomats were also angered by the suspension by four Latin American nations — Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Cuba — of flights from Mexico in response to the flu outbreak.
In another dispute, sports officials in Chile turned down a request to host two Mexican soccer teams’ championship games. Health Minister José Ángel Córdova of Mexico said he had received an apology from Chile.
Sharp response
China’s actions posed the biggest challenge — and elicited the sharpest response. Mexico said it would fly its citizens home from China on a chartered flight on Tuesday, including 70 people being held in quarantine.
Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, lashed out on Sunday at unnamed countries that he said were “acting out of ignorance and disinformation” and taking “repressive, discriminatory measures.” The foreign minister, Patricia Espinosa, urged Mexicans to stay away from China and Hong Kong, calling their actions “unjustified”
Some epidemiologists agreed with the characterization.
“Quarantine is a concept that dates back to when you could enter a country only at a few ports, and there is almost no country in the world where that is true anymore,” said Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, a University of Utah professor who is chairman of the pandemic influenza task force of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Dr. Tim F. Jones, Tennessee’s state epidemiologist, said China’s actions were understandable given that nation’s experiences with SARS and avian influenza. But just as the United States will soon ease its mitigation measures like school closings, he said, he hoped that Chinese officials “would ease up, too.”
The strain of swine flu circulating now does not appear to be nearly as dangerous as was initially feared, so measures to control its spread should be no more severe than those used to control the usual seasonal influenzas, Dr. Jones said. “There is no trail of dead bodies,” he said.
Since Thursday, when an infected passenger from Mexico City arrived in Hong Kong, Chinese health officials have been rounding up his fellow passengers, as well as some Mexican travelers on other flights who showed no sign of illness. The man who arrived Thursday is the only confirmed case of swine flu in China.
Among those the authorities have sequestered are a number of Mexican passport holders who had not been home in months, including a consular official in Guangzhou who was briefly held and tested after he returned to China from a trip to Cambodia.
According to Mexican consular officials, those taken from their hotel rooms included some families with small children, who were initially told that they would be tested for the H1N1 virus and released, but were later informed that they would be held for a week.
Ma Zhaoxu, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said the quarantine measures were justified given the fast spread of the new flu strain.
“We hope Mexico could proceed from the overall interest of joint response to the disease, fully understand the necessary measures we have taken, and handle the issue in an objective and calm manner,” he said in a statement.
Mexican citizens are not the only ones being quarantined. On Sunday, a group of 29 exchange students from the University of Montreal in Canada were confined to a hotel in the northern city of Changchun, university officials said Monday.
The one infected man on the AeroMexico flight is currently hospitalized in Hong Kong. Before being hospitalized, the man briefly stayed at the Metropark Hotel there, where about 300 guests and employees have been required to remain inside for a week.
In Beijing, 10 Mexican citizens have been confined to the Guomen Hotel, which sits directly behind the city’s designated influenza pandemic hospital. On Sunday, the Mexican consul delivered food to the hotel, but he was not allowed to talk to the sequestered guests.
Discrimination at home, too
Amid the uncertainty of the outbreak, Mexicans are also being subjected to discrimination by other Mexicans.
Late last week, a crowd of people in the Mexican state of Guerrero stoned two cars that had license plates from Mexico City. The protesters were apparently worried by the arrival of people from the capital, where the influenza has hit hardest.
Mexican officials are eager to underscore the uncertainties about the origins of the disease. Mr. Córdova, who has led Mexico’s response to the crisis, makes the point subtly, noting in his daily news briefings that the earliest cases were detected “in the United States and Mexico,” always mentioning the countries in that order.
Irked that some in the United States — especially groups that favor limiting the number of Mexican immigrants — have begun calling the virus “the Mexican flu,” some radio commentators in Mexico City have fired back with a label of their own for the outbreak: “California flu.”
Marc Lacey reported from Mexico City and Tijuana, and Andrew Jacobs from Beijing. Gardiner Harris contributed reporting from New York, Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong and Jonathan Ansfield from Beijing. Zhang Jing contributed research from Beijing.
This article, "Even as Fears of Flu Ebb, Mexicans Feel Stigma," first appeared in The New York Times.