High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In March and April 2009, an outbreak of a new strain of flu (also known as influenza), popularly known as swine flu was discovered to have infected several people in Mexico and the states of California and Texas in the United States. On April 28 Costa Rica became the first Central American country to report the outbreak of the virus, with a confirmed infection. As of November 4 the Costa Rican Ministry of Health had 1,596 confirmed cases, 1,275 pending cases, 8,000 already discarded, and 38 deaths.