Restaurants and cafes in Mexico City are to reopen on Wednesday after the country recorded a fall in new cases of the swine flu virus.

国家统计显示猪流感病毒感染者数量下降，墨西哥城的宾馆和咖啡店将要重新开业。

Eateries in Mexico City have been restricted to offering takeaway food

Libraries, museums and churches are to follow suit（出同花牌） a day later but cinemas, theatres and bars are to remain closed, the mayor's office said.

Government officials are meeting to discuss when schools and businesses across the country can resume work.

More than 1,000 cases of the virus have been reported in 20 countries.

Confirmed cases in the US have risen from 226 to 286, spread over 36 states, with most patients suffering mild symptoms. One death has been confirmed - that of a Mexican two-year-old boy who was visiting Texas.

Officials say the rise in cases in recent days was due to results of lab tests coming through, rather than because of a new surge（汹涌，澎湃） in cases.

The UN says it has seen no evidence of a spread at community level in Europe and Asia - a development that would trigger the highest level of alert.

Dr Keiji Fukuda, deputy chief of the World Health Organization (WHO), told reporters it was essential that surveillance remained strong worldwide.

Transmission to people who have not visited Mexico has been confirmed in six countries.

The virus is suspected of claiming 101 lives in Mexico though the number of confirmed cases there is 26, its health minister said on Monday.

After Mexico accused China of unfairly quarantining（检验，隔离） some of its citizens, the two countries sent planes to pick up each other's citizens.

In other developments

• Canada's confirmed number of cases rose to 140

• Of nine new confirmed cases of swine flu in the UK, seven appear to have been acquired from people who had not been to Mexico; total confirmed cases stood at 27

• About 250 recruits and personnel at an army camp in the western Swiss canton（行政区） of Fribourg were placed under quarantine after two recruits reported having flu symptoms

Mexico's ambassador to Beijing helped deliver food for quarantined Mexicans

'Phase of decline'

Mexico's shutdown is credited with（被认为） stemming（填塞） the spread of the virus but it badly affected¹ the country's economy.

President Felipe Calderon went on national TV on Sunday night to say a nationwide shutdown and an aggressive information campaign appeared to have helped curtail²（缩减，剥夺） the outbreak in Mexico.

"We have succeeded in detaining or at least slowing the spread of the virus precisely³ because the measures have been the correct ones," he said.

Swine flu has been confirmed as the cause of 26 deaths in Mexico and 701 people have been infected, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on Monday.

Earlier, he had said the epidemic⁴ was "in its phase of decline", having peaked between 23 and 28 April.

Talking about the possible reopening of schools, he warned it would "not happen just like that". "There will have to be training, preparations for teachers and parents," he told reporters.

Inhabitants of the capital interviewed by Reuters news agency on Sunday spoke⁵ of their frustration⁶ at the upset caused by the restrictions⁷.

"They should open everything back up so we can work," said Alberto Vazquez, 28, who washes cars for a living.

"These last days have been hard on us. If we don't work, we don't eat."