Animated Film Festival
All dubbed in Spanish, April 29-30, Cinemark del Este, Cinemark Escazú.

Dance Festival at CENAC
Workshops, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; dance shows, 5-7 p.m., Teatro de la Danza; dance performances, 7 p.m., amphitheater.

Luis Nubiola & Robert Aguilar in concert
Jazz, 9 p.m., Jazz Café, Escazú, 2253-8933, www.jazzcafecostarica.com.

Costa Rican health officials identified Tuesday night a second case of Influenza A (H1N1), prompting the government to declare a national health emergency.

Health Vice Minister Dr. Ana Cecilia Morice told The Tico Times Tuesday evening the second patient is a young Costa Rican man in his late twenties who visited Mexico last week.

According to Morice, the young man presented flu-like symptoms a couple of days ago. He visited CIMA Hospital in Escazú, west of San José, where he was tested for the virus. The results, indicating the young Tico suffers from Influenza A, were released to health officials Tuesday early evening, and are being sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) office in the U.S. city of Atlanta, Georgia, for further confirmation.

News of this case emerged seven hours after another one, a 21-year-old Tica who had also recently visited Mexico who became Central America's first victim of the so-called swine flu. Her test results are also pending confirmation from the CDC.

“We're considering it the first case but we're awaiting confirmation” from the CDC, Health Minister María Luisa Avila said during a press conference.

Both patients are in stable condition. Although only preliminarily confirmed to have swine flu, both patients have been instructed to stay home because they are considered contagious, Morice said.

The Influenza A (H1N1) strain has affected people between 20 and 40 years old, health officials said.

The 21-year-old – the authorities have not disclosed the flu carriers' identities – spent 24 hours at a hospital after developing flu symptoms, including coughing, fever and muscle pain following a trip to Mexico.

She has shown signs of recovery, the authorities said, and does not need to take antiviral medication. Costa Rica possesses some 30,000 doses of antiviral medication, which will be offered at hospitals but not over the counter, officials said.

Authorities are moving to notify people the patients could have come in contact with, such as fellow passengers and the crew from their flights from Mexico, of their infection, the authorities said.

“It's very important to follow (precautionary) measures to avoid the spread of this virus,” said Morice.

In addition to Costa Rica, the World Health Organization has identified more countries in which the virus has been detected, including New Zealand (three confirmed cases), the United Kingdom (two), Israel (two) and a second case in Spain, with no deaths reported.

The New Zealand Health Ministry expects another eight cases to be confirmed, Reuters reported.

The flu outbreak has killed as many as 149 people in Mexico – the only country in which it has claimed lives – and has infected six in Canada and as many as 65 in the U.S.

For more information, visit the CDC's swine flu Web site: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/?s_cid=swineFlu_outbreak_internal_001.

EL SALVADOR AND NICARAGUA – Health ministers from the member countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA) met behind closed doors in Managua Tuesday to sign a series of accords committing to use all resources available to confront swine flu, the same day the first and second swine flu cases in the region were reported in Costa Rica and other cases were suspected across Central America.

The SICA countries declared a health alert and pledged to increase vigilance and activate preventive programs. The SICA members present also said they would ask for help from the World Health Organization.

SICA is composed of Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, although Costa Rica and Belize were not present to sign Tuesday's declaration.

Countries in the region have been taking increased protective measures at their borders. In El Salvador, health officials are screening every passenger disembarking flights from Mexico, while immigration and customs officials – and even some duty free vendors – have started wearing the familiar paper paint masks for protection.

On interregional flights, masked stewardess hand out customs documents to masked passengers, who look accusingly at others who sneeze, cough or clear their throats while in-flight.

The SICA group also agreed to stop passengers from boarding planes who show clear symptoms related with swine flu – although health authorities describe these to be very similar to the common seasonal flu. The countries also pledged to share information with each other about suspected cases.

The Nicaraguan government, which on Tuesday ruled out several suspected cases of infection, has declared the issue a “priority” and is already trying to get political millage out of the pandemic, which they refer to as “the North American flu.” The ruling Sandinistas report that their “citizen power” health councils and brigades are being instructed to increase their vigilance for people displaying flu-like symptoms.

The Nicaraguan Social Security Institute is coordinating the response of public health clinics and President Daniel Ortega reportedly canceled his annual May 1 International Workers' Day rally, to prevent the health risk posed by a large congregation of people.

President Ortega was expected to announce a national state of emergency Tuesday night around 9 p.m., though it hadn't yet been confirmed by press time.

The National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR) released its latest statistics on how the economic downturn is affecting the Costa Rican tourism industry on Tuesday, and the results are not pretty.

Over two-thirds of tourism-related businesses – and over three-quarters of hotels in particular – reported business was down during the first three months of 2009, in comparison with the year before.

The chamber, which surveyed 112 tourism outlets last week, said the outlook for May, June and July does not look any better. The same groups – 67.7 percent of all tourism outlets and 76.2 percent of hotels – report that reservations are down compared to last year.

Tourism outlets can take solace, however, in the numbers for Easter week. As The Tico Times reported earlier this month (see TT, April 17), business during Easter week was better than expected. While 71.2 percent of businesses had projected fewer tourists than 2008, a smaller amount – 57.1 percent – reported a decline.

“While we cannot ignore that the crisis has affected the tourism sector nationwide, the numbers show that while reservations were not higher than prior years, Easter week served to change the perceptions of many tourism businesses that have been unmotivated,” CANATUR president Gonzalo Vargas said in a statement. Reservations increased, Vargas said, thanks to the chamber's efforts to promote “national tourism.”

The survey, however, found that 37.6 percent of tourism outlets reported the same number of sales to Costa Ricans as last year's Easter week, 30.1 percent sold less and 19.4 sold more.

Tourism businesses laid off an average of seven workers in March and April, the survey reported. A majority, 65.3 percent, of tourism outlets did not fire any workers during the period, while 32.6 percent reported layoffs.