MEXICO CITY (AFP) - - Officials tried to quell growing panic over swine flu on Thursday as governments braced for a global pandemic and US Vice President Joe Biden recommended a boycott of planes and subways.
A day after upping its pandemic alert level, the World Health Organisation said there was no evidence to suggest it should be raised to the maximum of six, but warned of fresh outbreaks during the southern hemisphere's winter.
European ministers meanwhile rejected an EU -wide ban on travel to Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak where citizens have been told to stay at home for five days.
Mexican authorities have put the number of probable flu deaths in the country at 84 although the confirmed death toll is only eight.
"We have to be careful, we have to exercise vigilance, we should not panic, we have to be prepared," European Union Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said at an emergency meeting of health ministers in Luxembourg.
France had pushed at the meeting for a ban on flights to Mexico but its Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot acknowledged there was little support among Paris' EU partners for such a drastic measure.
Pharmaceutical giant Roche stopped delivering its flu remedy Tamiflu to French high street pharmacies due to panic-buying, saying the drug was needed for hospitals
Britain, the Netherlands, Peru and Switzerland confirmed fresh case of the virus, taking to 12 the number of countries affected outside Mexico, with Japan expecting to join the list.
In the United States, where the number of confirmed cases rose to 111 spread across 13 states, comments from Biden did little to ease nerves.
In an interview with NBC's "Today" show, Biden said: "I would tell members of my family -- and I have -- I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now.
"It's not that it's going to Mexico -- it's that you're in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.
"I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, (be) suggesting they ride the subway."
The comments drew dismayed responses from the US Travel Association and the airline industry and Biden's office later tried to downplay his comments by saying he was referring only to an administration warning against non-essential travel to Mexico.
Speaking late Wednesday, President Barack Obama vowed to do "whatever it takes" to combat the deadly swine flu but said closing the border would be pointless with the virus already spreading on US soil.
In a televised address, Mexican President Felipe Calderon urged people to stay home during a five-day holiday weekend that starts Friday.
"There is no place as safe for protecting yourself against swine flu as your own home," he said. The government said the crisis could cost Mexico up to 70 billion dollars (53 billion euros).
Mexico has shut down public venues and even bars in the capital -- while major tour operators have halted trips to the country.
However, "the (revised) numbers indicate we are heading towards a stabilization phase," said Armando Ahued, health secretary for Mexico City.
The only confirmed death outside Mexico is a Mexican toddler in the United States.
Nevertheless, the United Nations advised its own staff to delay non-essential travel to swine flu-hit countries after it emerged that a World Bank employee had contracted, but been cured of, the virus.
Swine flu is believed to be a new strain that combines bird, swine and common human influenza.
The WHO's phase five alert status signals widespread transmission from person to person and that a pandemic is imminent.
The UN organisation meanwhile said it would begin referring to the swine flu virus as "influenza A (H1N1).
Pig farmers in many countries have been hit hard and are pressing governments to change the name of the virus.
Egypt began the slaughtering all pigs in the country on Thursday and there have been widespread bans on imports of North American pork, even though the disease cannot be caught from eating the meat.
In Britain, where three more cases were confirmed, the government's top health official said he was "concerned but... not alarmed" by the virus.
"To put things in proportion, in any flu, even the seasonal flu, there are some deaths, often of elderly people and the very frail," Liam Donaldson said.
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