Feeding the family a worry as Mexico faces five-day shutdown

From today, Mexico will close down it’s economy as people were urged to stay at home, after the president ordered drastic measures to contain the spread of swine flu. Offices, restaurants, schools, football stadiums and "non-essential" industries should shut, leaving only essential businesses such as supermarkets, hospitals and pharmacies to stay open, said Felipe Calderon. The lockdown, on a weekend and two-day bank holiday, will not affect police stations, airports and the public transport system. But the president said only critical government workers such as police and soldiers would be on duty.

There will be no government activities - those that are not fundamental for citizens - nor any private-sector activities that are not fundamental to common life," said Mr Calderon. "There is no safer place to protect yourself against catching swine flu than in your house," he said, defending the government against criticism that it had been slow to act against signs of a new and dangerous virus. Many people in Mexico City already closed up shop a day early in Thursday leaving the usually bustling streets of the capital eerily quiet. “I’ve never seen it like this,” said Javier Morales, a 58-year-old civil engineer, from behind his bright blue mask. “All the schools and universities, and businesses are shut, so there’s no one, it’s eerie,” he told The Times newspaper. Everyone is worried.”

In one major Mexico City supermarket, customers waited in queues for up to two hours as panic buying of food set in. However, outside the capital it remains to be seen how much the presidential decree will be obeyed. Few tourists in Cancun, Mexico's biggest resort, have been taking any precautions, reassured by hotel staff who claim the virus has not yet affected the town. Mexico has around 1,300 people in hospital being tested for swine. The country has reported 99 confirmed cases of swine flu, eight of them fatal, to the World Health Organisation. As many as 168 people there are suspected to have died from the virus but most have not been confirmed by tests.

The crisis increasingly threatening livelihoods. Mexico’s central bank has warned the outbreak could deepen the nation’s recession, further ravaging an economy that has already shrunk by eight percent in the first quarter.“That’s the biggest problem as far as I’m concerned,” one factory worker told the newspaper. “More than the illness, I can’t go to work now. How am I going to feed my family?”

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children