Flu Epidemic Fear Grips World

Health workers watch a bank of monitors displaying the body heat of incoming passengers at the International Airport in Hong Kong April 27, 2009. Asia, a continent that has battled deadly viruses such as the H5N1 bird flu and SARS in recent years, has been taking steps to ward off the new swine flu virus.

REUTERS/Vincent Yu/Pool (CHINA POLITICS HEALTH TRAVEL)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The threat of a flu pandemic gripped the world on Monday, as a virus that has killed 103 people in Mexico and shut down chunks of the capital spread to the United States and as far as New Zealand.The dollar weakened along with Mexico's peso as Asian markets were rattled by an outbreak that ballooned over the weekend, prompting the World Health Organization to activate its 24-hour "war room" command center.No deaths have occurred outside Mexico from the new strain of swine flu but 20 cases have been identified in the United States and six in Canada.Possible cases are being checked as far afield as Europe, Israel and New Zealand...