Mexico on Tuesday asked the Group of Seven (G7) to lift the trade and tourism restrictions on the nations worst hit by the A/H1N1 influenza, a Health Ministry statement said.

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos made this call at the 62nd annual meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, said the statement.

The most industrialized nations, including the United States, Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, should "send a clear signal to the world that it is safe to continue trade (with the flu-hit countries and regions)," said Cordova.

The minister said that such moves of solidarity are more important than trade restrictions when faced with a pandemic like the current one, because it will be an example for similar scenarios in the future.

Updating the death toll to 74 with 3,734 confirmed cases in the country, he also restated his conviction that the disease is on a downward trend.

Only seven of those deaths are in people who caught the disease after April 23, the day that Mexico declared a health emergency and ordered the closure of all educational institutions, added the minister.

Cordova reiterated his call to restart economic activities as quickly as possible, while at the same time calling for strengthening sanitary measures.

The WHO has now reported 9,869 cases of A/H1N1 flu. The United States outstripped Mexico's confirmed cases with 5,123 cases, or around 52 percent of the total.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2009)