The World Health Organization said it would keep its pandemic alert at the second-highest level Monday, the same day Mexico announced it would reopen most businesses that had closed in the wake of the H1N1 flu outbreak.
In New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the WHO will keep the pandemic alert level at Phase 5, if the situation "remains as it is."
Also on Monday, WHO chief Margaret Chan told the UN General Assembly via videolink from Geneva that "we are not there yet."
Currently the WHO has set its pandemic alert level to Phase 5, meaning the probability of a pandemic is "high to certain," as H1N1 continues to spread around the world.
Phase 6 is the alert level that signifies "a global pandemic is underway."
Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's acting assistant director-general for health, security and environment, told reporters that there is no sign of that the H1N1 virus has transferred person-to-person outside of North America.
"We do not have any evidence that the virus has taken hold and has led to community-level transmission in any other countries right now," he said Monday, during a news conference in Geneva.
The decision to keep the pandemic alert level steady came on the same day that the Mexican health secretary announced his country's intention to reopen most businesses later this week.
Jose Cordova said his country would reopen most businesses on Wednesday, citing the fact that Mexico's national outbreak has slowed.
But while Mexican officials say the epidemic is waning, health officials around the globe say its still too early to make that claim.
"Certainly, maybe, this current round of activity has peaked, but we are only 10 days into this outbreak," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told reporters in Switzerland. "I think we would want to wait a while before making a definitive decision."
In Mexico, businesses and schools have been shut down since last Friday and officials are deciding when to allow things to get back to normal.
"We have succeeded in detaining or at least slowing the spread of the virus precisely because the measures have been the correct ones," Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Monday in an interview with state television.
Also on Monday, the Mexican government sent a plane to China to pick up any citizens who wanted to return home after some 70 Mexican travellers were quarantined.
Mexican ambassador Jorge Guajardo said China has quarantined more than 70 Mexicans in hospitals and hotels.
Guajardo also said Mexicans arriving on flights to China were being taken into isolation.
Calderon complained about the backlash against Mexicans abroad.
"I think it's unfair that because we have been honest and transparent with the world some countries and places are taking repressive and discriminatory measures because of ignorance and disinformation," Calderon said.
"There are always people who are seizing on this pretext to assault Mexicans, even just verbally."
Calderon did not single out China but the country's Foreign Relations Department announced Monday it was sending a plane to China.
As of 11 a.m. ET on Monday, the World Health Organization says there have been 1,025 cases of the H1N1 flu virus and 26 deaths from the virus in Mexico.
With files from The Associated Press
