April 27, 2009

US medical experts are "very concerned" about a rare swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 60 people in Mexico and infected seven people in the United States, an official said Friday (April 24).

"It's very obvious that we are very concerned. We've stood up emergency operation centres," Centres for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Dave Daigle told AFP. "This is the first time that we've seen an avian strain, two swine strains and a human strain."

He said US health officials were investigating the strains and were due to receive samples from Mexico that would be tested at a lab at the centres based in Atlanta, Georgia.