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Speaking in Geneva, an expert from the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN's health agency, expert said the swine flu virus could be capable of mutating into a more dangerous strain but that more information was needed before raising the WHO's pandemic alert phase.

Only a handful of the Mexican cases have so far been laboratory-confirmed as swine flu, while in the US confirmed cases had only mild symptoms. Health experts want to know why some people become so seriously ill, while others just get a bit of a cold, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Switzerland.

Officials said most of those killed so far in Mexico were young adults - rather than more vulnerable children and the elderly. It is unclear how effective currently available flu vaccines would be at offering protection against the new strain, as it is genetically distinct from other flu strains.

H1N1 is the same strain that causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans but the newly detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

It is spread mainly through coughs and sneezes.

Ten New Zealand students from a group which visited Mexico have tested positive for Influenza A, making it "likely" they are infected with swine flu In France, a top health official told Le Parisien newspaper there were unconfirmed suspicions that two individuals who had just returned from Mexico might be carrying the virus Spain's health ministry says three people who returned from a trip from Mexico with flu symptoms are in isolation and being tested In Israel, medics are testing a 26-year-old man who has been taken to hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning from a trip to Mexico Two people in Queensland, Australia, are being tested in hospital after developing flu-like symptoms on returning from Mexico

Officials in Mexico confirmed that 20 people had died from the virus while another 61 deaths were suspected cases of swine flu. More than 1,300 people have been admitted to hospital with suspected symptoms since 13 April. With Mexico City apparently the centre of infection, many people are choosing to leave the city, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs reports.

Dr Fukuda said on Sunday there was no proof that eating pork would lead to infection. "Right now we have no evidence to suggest that people are getting exposed, or getting infected, from exposure to pork or to pigs, and so right now we have zero evidence to suspect that exposure to meat leads to infections," he said.

Already, schools across Mexico have closed, public gatherings are restricted and archaeological sites have been placed off-limits.

Meanwhile in Mexico, President Felipe Calderon has announced the partial suspension of non-essential work and services from 1 to 5 May - a holiday period there. In a TV address, he urged people to stay in with their families - saying there was "no place as safe as your own home".

Ms Chan stressed on Wednesday that there was no danger from eating properly cooked pork. She advised hygiene measures such as hand-washing to prevent infection and said it was important "to maintain a level of calm".

Mexico is already being hit hard by the global economic slowdown, and the country's finance minister says swine flu could cut a further half-percent of GDP.

Officials have put the number of suspected deaths from swine flu in Mexico at 168, although just eight deaths have been confirmed, with 26 infections positively tested.

In Europe, the director-general of health and consumer protection, Robert Madelin, said the continent was well prepared but nonetheless deaths from the disease were expected. "It is not a question of whether people will die, but more a question of how many. Will it be hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands?", he said, speaking to Reuters news agency.

Spain has seen the first case of a person contracting swine flu without having travelled there.

After Mexico, the US has recorded the next highest number of confirmed cases, with 91 - and the first death of swine flu outside Mexico, after a visiting Mexican child died in Texas.

Earlier this year, a study by the US Department of Defence warned that Mexico was in danger of becoming a failed state because of the drug gangs.

Gang-related violence claimed the lives of some 6,000 people in 2008 and so far this year more than 1,000 have been killed as gangs fight both one another for territory and the police and troops sent to tackle them.

Mr Fukuda said this was a "significant step towards pandemic influenza" but a pandemic should not be considered inevitable. Experts did not recommend closing borders or restricting travel, he stressed. "With the virus being widespread... closing borders or restricting travel really has very little effects in stopping the movement of this virus," he said.

The first batches of a swine flu vaccine could be ready in four to six months' time but it will take several more months to produce large quantities of it, Mr Fukuda said.

Health experts say the virus comes from the same strain that causes seasonal outbreaks in humans but also contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is sending a team to investigate allegations that industrial pig farms in Mexico were the source of the outbreak.

In almost all swine flu cases outside Mexico, people have been only mildly ill and have made a full recovery.

In Canada, six cases have been recorded at opposite ends of the country, in British Columbia and in Nova Scotia.

Swine flu officially arrived in Europe on Monday, when tests confirmed that a young man in Spain and two people in Scotland - all of whom had recently returned from Mexico - had the virus. They were said to be recovering well.

Several countries have banned imports of raw pork and pork products from Mexico and parts of the US, although experts say there is no evidence to link exposure to pork with infection.

Shares in airlines have fallen sharply on fears about the economic impact of the outbreak.

Although all of the deaths so far have been in Mexico, the flu is spreading in the United States and suspected cases have been detected elsewhere: Eleven confirmed infections in the US In addition, eight suspected cases are being investigated at a New York City high school where about 200 students fell mildly ill with flu-like symptoms Ten New Zealand students are among a group which travelled to Mexico have tested positive for influenza A - making it "likely", though not definite, that they are infected with swine flu, said Health Minister Tony Ryall In France, a top health official told Le Parisien newspaper there were unconfirmed suspicions that two individuals who had just returned from Mexico may be carrying the virus But a UK hospital conducting tests for swine flu on a British Airways cabin crew member said the tests proved negative.

Public buildings have been closed and hundreds of public events suspended.

Schools in and around Mexico City have been closed until 6 May, and some 70% of bars and restaurants in the capital have been temporarily closed.

People are being strongly urged to avoid shaking hands, and the US embassy has advised visitors to the country to keep at least six feet (1.8m) from other people. Mexico's Health Secretary, Jose Cordova, said a total of 1,324 people had been admitted to hospital with suspected symptoms since 13 April and were being tested for the virus.

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon has announced emergency measures to deal with the situation. They include powers to isolate individuals suspected of having the virus without fear of legal repercussions.

Swine flu can be caught through contact with infected animals, but it is unclear if contact with flies or excrement has the same effect.

The outbreak of respiratory illness in the area of the Granjas Carroll plant was first detected at the beginning of this month by Veratect, a company based in Washington state which monitors the spread of disease and pandemics around the world for corporate clients.

The WHO said on Monday that 985 cases of the virus had been officially reported across 20 countries. Person-to-person transmission has been confirmed in six countries.

"Virtually all of the United States probably has this virus circulating now," Dr Anne Schuchat said. "That doesn't mean that everybody's infected, but within the communities, the virus has arrived." She said that although she expected cases to become more severe and to lead to deaths, this in itself would not be unusual as every year 36,000 people die in the US after contracting seasonal flu.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said that the virus appeared to have peaked between 23-28 April. "The evolution of the epidemic is now in its declining phase," he told a news conference.

But, he added, "I am not saying that now the CIA has done this. There are different groups. It could be the [work of another] intelligence service; it could be the CIA; it could be the terrorists. Anyway, there are people who employ these types of methods."

"The Italian preparations for the summit have been chaotic from start to finish," said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the Centre for International Co-operation at New York University.

The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place.

"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations.

Critics say Italy's Berlusconi government has made up for the lack of substance by increasing the size of the guest list. Estimates of the numbers of heads of state coming to L'Aquila range from 39 to 44."This is a gigantic fudge," Gowan said. "The Italians have no ideas and have decided that best thing to do is to spread the agenda extremely thinly to obscure the fact that didn't really have an agenda."

Silvio Berlusconi has come in for harsh criticism for delivering only 3% of development aid promises made four years ago, and for planning cuts of more than 50% in Italy's overseas aid budget.

The heavy criticism of Italy comes at a time when the future of the G8 as a forum for addressing the world's problems is very much in question. At the beginning of the year the G20 group, which included emerging economies, was seen as a possible replacement, but the G20 London summit in April convinced US officials it was too unwieldy a vehicle.

The most likely replacement for the G8 is likely to be between 13- and 16-strong, including rising powers such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, which currently attend meetings as the "outreach five" But any transition would be painful as countries jostle for a seat. Italy's removal is seen in a possibility but Spanish membership in its place is unlikely. The US and the emerging economies believe the existing group is too Euro-centric already, and would prefer consolidated EU representation. That is seen as unlikely. No European state wants to give up their place at the table..

Mr. Obama will meet with leaders from the region this weekend. They will discuss the economic crisis, including a plan to replenish the Inter-American Development Bank, a Washington-based pillar of clout that has suffered losses from the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, China is rapidly increasing its lending in Latin America as it pursues not only long-term access to commodities like soybeans and iron ore, but also an alternative to investing in United States Treasury notes.

One of China’s new deals in Latin America, the $10 billion arrangement with Argentina, would allow Argentina reliable access to Chinese currency to help pay for imports from China. It may also help lead the way to China’s currency to eventually be used as an alternate reserve currency. The deal follows similar ones China has struck with countries like South Korea, Indonesia and Belarus.

As the financial crisis began to whipsaw international markets last year, the Federal Reserve made its own currency arrangements with central banks around the world, allocating $30 billion each to Brazil and Mexico. (Brazil has opted not to tap it for now.) But smaller economies in the region, including Argentina, which has been trying to dispel doubts about its ability to meet its international debt payments, were left out of those agreements.

Details of the Chinese deal with Argentina are still being ironed out, but an official at Argentina’s central bank said it would allow Argentina to avoid using scarce dollars for all its international transactions. The takeover of billions of dollars in private pension funds, among other moves, led Argentines to pull the equivalent of nearly $23 billion, much of it in dollars, out of the country last year.

China is also seizing opportunities in Latin America when traditional lenders over which the United States holds some sway, like the Inter-American Development Bank, are pushing up against their limits.

Just one of China’s planned loans, the $10 billion for Brazil’s national oil company, is almost as much as the $11.2 billion in all approved financing by the Inter-American Bank in 2008. Brazil is expected to use the loan for offshore exploration, while agreeing to export as much as 100,000 barrels of oil a day to China, according to the oil company.

The Inter-American bank, in which the United States has de facto veto power in some matters, is trying to triple its capital and increase lending to $18 billion this year. But the replenishment involves delicate negotiations among member nations, made all the more difficult after the bank lost almost $1 billion last year. China will also have a role in these talks, having become a member of the bank this year.

In February, China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, traveled to Caracas to meet with President Hugo Chávez. The two men announced that a Chinese-backed development fund based here would grow to $12 billion from $6 billion, giving Venezuela access to hard currency while agreeing to increase oil shipments to China to one million barrels a day from a level of about 380,000 barrels

Mr. Chávez’s government contends the Chinese aid differs from other multilateral loans because it comes without strings attached, like scrutiny of internal finances. But the Chinese fund has generated criticism among his opponents, who view it as an affront to Venezuela’s sovereignty. “The fund is a swindle to the nation,” said Luis Díaz, a lawmaker who claims that China locked in low prices for the oil Venezuela is using as repayment.

“This is China playing the long game,” said Gregory Chin, a political scientist at York University in Toronto. “If this ultimately translates into political influence, then that is how the game is played.”