Geneva/Tokyo/Mexico City - Canada and Costa Rica confirmed their first human deaths from influenza H1N1 on Saturday, bring to four the number of countries that have reported fatalities from the illness. The number of confirmed cases worldwide climbed to 3,200 with Japan and Australia joining the list of countries reporting confirmed infections, the World Health Organization in Geneva said.
In Costa Rica, a 53-year-old man was the country's first fatal victim of the so-called swine flu, Health Minister Maria Luisa Avila said. There were a total of seven cases in the Central American nation.
Alberta, Canada authorities said the virus was detected in a woman, aged around 30, who died in late April, the CBC television channel reported. However, as the woman had previous health conditions, it could not be said with certainty "to which degree H1N1 contributed to her death," Andre Corriveau, a senior Alberta health official, said. Canada reported 214 infections and one death.
The number of laboratory-confirmed infections of the new influenza strain in humans to more than 3,200 cases in 27 countries.
In Mexico, where the virus first broke out, authorities on Saturday increased the number of dead to 48, with a total of 1,626 people infected.
Though the country as a whole was beginning to return to normal, several states, including Jalisco and Guerrero, extended the closure of schools for another week. In Jalisco, three people were believed to have died from the virus.
In neighbouring Guatemala, President Alvaro Colom cancelled all his appointment for the weekend and local governments were encouraged to delay all public gatherings after new infections were reported. A new case was also reported in Panama.
The number of human swine influenza cases in the United States jumped by more than 600 cases on Saturday, with 2,254 confirmed cases, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
On Saturday, Japan confirmed three cases of swine-flu infections in a high-school teacher and two students who returned to Japan from an excursion in Canada on a flight via the United States.
"The conditions of the three patients have remained stable," a Japanese health official was quoted as saying Saturday by Kyodo News Agency.
A woman who arrived back in Australia on a flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane last week has been confirmed as the country's first swine-flu case.
Queensland health authorities said the woman tested "weak positive" for the H1N1 virus and has already recovered.
New Zealand's Ministry of Health reported Saturday that the number of confirmed cases of infection with the new influenza H1N1 strain in the country had risen by two to seven. It said the two additional patients were students who returned from a college trip to Mexico and had been previously listed as probable cases.
Meanwhile, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that while countries had the right to put people in quarantine to prevent the spread of a virus, they had to do so within the rules of international law on discrimination.
"No one should be put in quarantine solely on the basis of their nationality. That would be an unacceptable and clear-cut case of discrimination," said Rupert Colville, a spokesman.
The comments came following an incident earlier this week in which Mexicans and others in Hong Kong were quarantined, seemingly without any scientific basis.
Hong Kong officials on Saturday night detained two people who were on board a flight with a teacher and two students who went on to test positive for the swine flu virus in Japan.
A government spokesman said the two are among a group of 13 passengers being sought who flew on the same Northwest Airlines flight to Tokyo from Canada on May 8 with the teacher and students and then took onward flights to other Asian destinations.
The two were tracked down Saturday after the World Health Organization notified governments of the flu cases in Japan. One of them was found by Hong Kong health officials at a Tsim Sha Tsui hotel after arriving Friday night.
The second was picked up as he arrived at the airport from Taiwan Saturday evening. So far neither have shown symptoms of the H1NI virus.
The WHO has not recommended travel restrictions.
In Europe there were 160 confirmed cases, with Spain accounting for 88, Britain 34, while France had 12 and Germany reported 11.
