Mexico City - Mexico's central bank said Wednesday that it expects GDP to contract by 3.8 to 4.8 per cent in 2009, a considerably more pessimistic impact than its previous forecasts that could get worse in the light of the current flu outbreak.

The Bank of Mexico had estimated earlier this year that GDP would fall by 0.8 to 1.8 per cent.

Beyond the severe global financial and economic crisis, the bank said the flu epidemic is an "additional" risk factor that could affect "all levels of productive activity" in the second quarter of the year.

To increase its attentiveness and block up swine influenza virus’ entry into India, the government has began taking desperate steps to battle and contain it.

The administration on Tuesday announced that it would ask drug makers comprising Cipla, Ranbaxy, Natco and Hyderabad-based Hetero Drugs to start storing the chemicals needed to create the drug to fight deadly influenza.

Moreover, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) would also issue additional passes to health workers in order to check people with flu symptoms at nine airports.

Mexico City - Mexican authorities corrected the number of people killed by swine flu from previously 20 to seven.

Miguel Angel Lezana, director of the national epidemiological and disease control centre, said late Tuesday the mutated H1N1 swine flu virus was confirmed to be responsible for seven deaths. The other 13 cases could not be confirmed yet.

Mexican authorities previously put the swine flu death toll at 20. Lezana said additional testing was conducted on recommendation of the the Geneva-based World Health Organization.

Mexico City  - Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said late Monday that number of people dying from an infection with a mutated swine flu virus rose slower than expected.

Six people died on Saturday, five on Sunday and three on Monday, Cordova said. The number of new infections was also slowing down, from 145 registered new cases to 110 in the past 24 hours.

Mexico City  - Mexico on Monday closed schools and universities until May 6 and limited commercial activity in the capital to stop the spread of swine flu.

Mexico is believed to be the epicentre of the swine flu outbreak. An estimated 149 people have died from influenza, but only 26 deaths have so far been linked to the swine flu virus.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department issued an advisory late Monday urging against non- essential travel to Mexico, in effect through July.

Mexico City  - The bells of Mexico City's cathedral rang in prayer, and the figure of Our Father Jesus of Health was taken out onto the streets of the city's historic centre Sunday for the first time in 150 years to ask God for protection.

As in the times of smallpox, Roman Catholics joined in prayer against the ongoing flu epidemic, including cases of swine flu, that has left 149 people dead in the country in less than a month.