Mexico City - The government of Mexico City banned eating in restaurants and ordered gyms, clubs, cabarets and billiards rooms to close, as measures to constrain the flu epidemic got tougher Tuesday. At least 152 people have died of flu in recent weeks in the North American country, but at the most only 20 deaths have been attributed to swine flu, raising further mystery about the other deaths.

But restaurants will still be allowed to sell meals to people who pick them up and eat them at home.

"The city's restaurants must partially suspend their activities, that is to say, they are allowed to keep preparing and selling food exclusively in the form that is known as takeout," said Mexico City Interior Minister Jose Angel Avila.

If they fail to comply, restaurants - of which Mexico City reportedly has some 25,000 - will be subjected to fines and to outright closure.

Juan de Dios Barba, president of the Employers Association of the Republic of Mexico, questioned the move and said it was likely to cause restaurant losses of some 30 million dollars per day.

Barba noted that if epidemic-related restrictions on hotels, shops, recreation centres like cinemas and theatres are added up, the figure could reach 110 million dollars per day in the country's capital.

School and university lessons have been suspended throughout Mexico until at least May 6, and mass events are being cancelled.

"We are very worried about this move. We would have preferred to have limits on restaurants' opening hours," Barba said.

As a further alternative, he suggested a reduction in restaurant capacity.

The authorities further recommended that people not buy food from street stands, often of dubious hygiene, in the coming days.

Most of the 152 confirmed flu deaths have happened in Mexico City and its metropolitan area, which hold some 20 million of Mexico's 105 million people.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos late Monday said that 20 of the deaths were confirmed from swine flu.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, which on Monday raised its world alarm level another step as the disease spread to other countries, has issued different figures, saying only seven deaths in Mexico have been confirmed from swine flu while another 19 non-fatal cases of swine flu in Mexico have been identified.(dpa)