Outbreak

Castro: Mexico Covered Up Flu

Cuban leader has theory as Mexican cases soar.

Fidel Castro is not happy about Cuba’s first case of swine flu, and he has a theory: “Mexican authorities did not inform the world of the presence [of swine flu], while they waited for Obama's visit,” he wrote on the Cuban government’s website. Obama visited Mexico on April 16, and health officials announced the disease was spreading a week later. A scientific analysis of swine flu’s spread, meanwhile, revealed “the virus is slightly more dangerous than the one that caused a million deaths in the 1968 pandemic, but that it is nowhere near as deadly as the Spanish flu of 1918 that killed 50 million,” according to The Times of London. Also, “The scientists have estimated that about 23,000 people contracted swine flu in Mexico before the end of April, when the WHO had confirmed only 257 infections worldwide, 97 of which were in Mexico. The number of confirmed cases rose yesterday to 4,694, including 53 deaths.”