Mexico City  - The number of confirmed swine flu infections in Mexico rose from 26 to 49, although the number of deaths was still at seven from the new strain of flu, according to laboratory results that Mexico's health authorities made public Wednesday.

In total, there have been 159 deaths and 2,498 infections in Mexico's flu epidemic. Of these, 1,311 remained in hospital. But most have not yet been identified as swine flu.

Late Tuesday, Mexican authorities corrected the number of people killed by swine flu from previously 20 to seven, in a process that was said to have been the result of "refining and analysis."

"In the next 24 hours we will be able to know the results of 150 additional cases, and we will keep studying, with our own laboratory already in place and with the cooperation of the Centers for Disease Control in the United States and of Canada's Health Ministry, all possible cases," Mexico's Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said late Tuesday.(dpa)