The number of suspected cases of swine flu in Brazil reached 20 on Tuesday, according to the country's Health Ministry.

The ministry said that the number of suspected cases reached 22at one point, but two cases in Sao Paulo state have been discarded, as the patients were diagnosed with other diseases.

The cases were registered in eight states: Amazonas (3), Bahia (2), Minas Gerais (3), Para (1), Parana (4), Rio de Janeiro (2), Rio Grande do Norte (2), and Santa Catarina (3). So far, the only Brazilian region without any suspected cases is the midwestern.

The Health Ministry reaffirmed that the swine flu virus is not spreading in the country, as no one has contracted the disease in Brazilian soil so far. All the patients being monitored by the Health Ministry have recently been to areas where swine flu cases were registered, such as Mexico and the United States.

In the past few days, the Brazilian authorities announced several measures to deal with the flu outbreak, such as examining passengers arriving from countries in which there have been swine flu cases, and distributing pamphlets with information about the disease in the international airports.

Also, the government announced on Tuesday that Brazil will receive, in the next few days, 54,000 doses of the medicine Tamiflu, which is used to treat several types of influenza, including the swine flu.

The ministry said that it already has another 90 million doses of the medicine ready for use. So far, the government has not expressed any intention of restricting the flights to areas in which cases of swine flu have been detected.

The swine flu has already affected eight countries, and might have killed about 150 people in Mexico.