The number of dead in Mexico's epidemic of the new influenza virus A(H1N1) rose to 66 today, with a total of 2,895 infections, according to dpa. However, Mexican authorities stressed that the number of new infections continued to fall by the day. Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said lessons are to resume next week in schools that have remained closed in eight of Mexico's 32 states. He added the effort to find cases of flu among children "has worked great," and asked that it be kept up for another week. Before starting lessons, teachers check their students to make sure that they do not have a high temperature or other symptoms of the flu. The death toll rose from 64 confirmed deaths and a total of 2,656 infections on Thursday. Most of the infections happened before April 23, when the authorities issued the alert about the presence of the new virus. The first confirmed death happened on April 10, and the last so far happened on May 10. Elsewhere, the United States reported its fourth death from the so-called swine flu from a total of 4,714 confirmed or probable cases. Peru became the fourth South American country to report a case, with its first confirmed instance of the virus in a 27-year-old woman who returned Saturday from New York.
