Mexico City officials on Thursday reported two new deaths with symptoms consistent with theA/H1N1 flu, bringing the total number of such deaths to 28 in the capital city.

Five of the deaths have been confirmed by laboratory tests to be caused by the new strain of deadly virus, the officials added.

A total of 115 people are now hospitalized with the flu, the same number as in the previous day, as 18 people were newly admitted with flu symptoms, but 16 were discharged upon recovery and two others died in hospital.

"The figures tell us we are heading towards a stabilization stage," Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon told reporters. "Our worry had been that we would have a large number of people already infected with a tendency towards (accelerated) growth. With the measures we have taken and with citizens' participation we have not had this exponential growth in infections."

During the last 24 hours, Mexico City medical centers received 13,339 people, of whom 194 proved to have swine flu symptoms, including the 18 newly hospitalized. This represents a sharp drop from the day-earlier figure of 320, and the Sunday peak number of 351.

"We must not be too complacent, because tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday and Monday we have to be checking the figures and what results we have seen," the mayor said. City officials estimate the virus has a 10-day incubation period, and the first virus alert was issued in the evening of April 21.

"We must realize that we will not overcome this virus this week," the mayor noted. "We will have to live with it for some time, and so we will have to take measure to revive the economy, equip our health infrastructure properly and support the city."

Federal government data showed that Mexico City is the worst hit area with 83 confirmed swine flu cases. Over 170 people have died with symptoms consistent with the deadly flu -- high body temperature, breathing difficulties, headaches and muscular pain --but only 12 of these cases have so far tested positive for the new disease, in part due to a bottleneck in testing during the early days of the outbreak. As of Wednesday, federal government laboratories had the capability to test 65 samples every six hours.