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Mexico is not only at the epicentre of the H1N1 flu outbreak, but also of a virulent strain of gallows humour.

Known for their irony and dark wit, Mexicans have created everything from flu-inspired songs, to cringe-worthy puns and even a blue stuffed toy called "Achufy!"

"You better do the dance of the swine flu, if you feel a little sick, you better dance around with me," the band Agrupacion Carino sings in its new song Influenza Cumbia, which has 407,411 hits on YouTube as of yesterday evening.

First known as "swine flu," the virus has inspired countless pig-centred jokes: "When will there be a mass outbreak of human/avian swine flu? When pigs fly."

Another references the border Mexico shares with the United States, and the wall built there to dissuade migrants from crossing: "They say in the U.S. they're not worried about swine flu passing over from Mexico. That's because nothing at all gets over the border."

Last Monday, the 5.6-magnitude earthquake in the state of Guerrero inspired another round of jibes: "What did Mexico City say to the swine flu? You have me trembling."

The flu virus, which has so far infected 727 people in Mexico and killed 26, is now in its "declining phase," according to Jose Angel Cordova, Mexico's Health Secretary. Tomorrow, authorities will allow cafés, restaurants, museums and libraries to reopen.

But it appears the funny phase is just getting off the ground and, like H1N1, spreading quickly around the globe. In Germany, someone in the northern German city of Bremen decorated a sculpture of a pig with a face mask within days of the country confirming new cases. And the black humour has a firm hold on the blogosphere, which is rife with hog-related jokes. One blog has a "swine flu joke grid," where pork and bacon can be cross-referenced with pandemic to produce endless puns: pigdemia, aporkalypse, hamthrax, hamocaust and snoutbreak. Swinefighter, an online game, lets players blast viral-looking piggies with hypodermic needles.

Some question whether it is in poor taste to make fun of a deadly virus that has prompted the World Health Organization to issue a level 5 pandemic alert.

"I think humour can be a useful coping mechanism in stressful times," says Colin Lee, an associate medical officer of health at the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit in Ontario and co-author of The Flu Pandemic and You: A Canadian Guide. "But at this point in time of the outbreak and given that many people and their families have been affected, it is in poor taste."

Indeed. Sniffed one online reader of a story on flu jokes in a New Zealand newspaper: "Great jokes, Kiwis, really funny people, when hundreds are dead and thousands infected, including your own countrymen. Maybe a Mobidly-FunnyJoke-Flu will affect your silly little country."

For his part, Dr. Lee does not recall any black humour during the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003. But he believes that people joke about pandemics in general because they don't yet feel like a real threat. "It hasn't happened yet in our lifetime," he said.

Mexicans are used to surviving calamitous events through humour. "It's common for people to laugh at themselves," noted Armando Talamantes, a journalist in Mexico City. "I think it's a kind of escape for your mind. It doesn't mean they don't take the threat seriously."

To alleviate the boredom of a five-day lockdown in the capital, Mexicans have been gathering in apartments, or joking online. "There's a new tool in Facebook called, 'Who would I cough on if I had influenza?' and you can choose up to five characters," Mr. Talamantes said. "People are playing with that and choosing politicians."

An NBC journalist noted on her blog that "bored-out-of-their-minds" staff in her hotel in the capital were pretending to cough on one another, laughing. "That, while perhaps in poor taste, was a sure sign they were certainly not worried," Michelle Kosinski wrote.

Many Mexicans continue to wear face masks, though some are now shaped like snouts, or decorated with butterflies or kissy lips. Newspapers have published smiley cut-outs for people to paste on their masks, and some drivers have special ones for their cars and dogs. Also making the e-mail rounds is an image of Mexican national hero Benito Juarez on the blue 20-peso note, outfitted with a face mask.

Even telenovelas, the ubiquitous soap operas that dominate Mexican television, have felt the weight of the outbreak. In response to concerns that the flu could spread through kissing, Televisa, the world's biggest soap opera producer, decreed that smooching will be reduced to a minimum to protect the actors. That prompted cultural commentators to wonder how exactly "safe kisses" would be carried out: telepathically?

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Flu funnies

Did you hear that Mexico has

become a world power? When it sneezes, the whole world gets the flu.

For a normal flu, we say "achoo," but for swine flu we say "achoink."

The only known cure for swine flu is the liberal application of oinkment.

Jay Leno: "Hey, have you all started making your summer

vacation plans? I'm not sure what to do this year. I'm stuck between a Somali pirate cruise or a trip to a Mexican pig farm."

David Letterman: "A beautiful day here in New York City, wasn't it? But it was cold - so cold that I was wearing two swine flu masks."

Wires