DENVER—Mexican Secretary of Health Jose Angel Cordova said Thursday that last year’s swine flu outbreak triggered discrimination against his country’s citizens around the world.
“Many countries did not understand that it was a global problem and not one particular to a single country,” Dr. Jose Angel Cordova told a round-table on international health threats at the “Biennial of the Americas,” a monthlong arts and culture event.
Cordova didn’t go into details about the discrimination that he said Mexican citizens faced. But he said it was unfair that Mexican flights were banned from some countries, while flights from other countries that were also affected by the swine flu were allowed in. He said the prejudicial affects of the illness were also apparent in trade, with Mexican products often being returned to the country during the height of the scare.
“We received different treatment in relation to other countries,” Cordova said.
Swine flu first appeared in Mexico 14 months ago. Since then, more than 72,500 infections and nearly 1,300 fatalities have been registered in the country. Worldwide, there have been 17,800 in more than 200 countries. On June 30, the Mexican government lifted its swine flu alert, meaning the health emergency is over and the urgent process to obtain vaccines is back to normal.
Cordova said in the last year, Mexico has been sharing information about the illness with the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, which declared swine flu a pandemic.
“Mexico shared with the world, in an honest and transparent way, all of its experiences to prevent other countries from suffering the damage to the level that we did,” he said.
Other speakers at Thursday’s event included Mexico’s U.S. ambassador, Arturo Sarukhan, and former Ecaudor President Gustavo Noboa.
“We live in a global world and nobody is exempt from these hazards or risks,” Cordova said.
