Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian priest Roberto Francisco Daniel tells his congregation not to hold hands while saying the Lord’s Prayer and to refrain from shaking hands and kissing in his morning mass to avoid getting swine flu.

“At least if you don’t have skin touching, you eliminate contact with secretions of somebody infected,” said the Roman Catholic priest, known as Padre Beto at the Nossa Senhora de Aparecida church in Bauru, about 300 kilometers (187 miles) west of Sao Paulo.

Brazilians are helping contain the swine flu in Latin America’s largest country by changing religious habits, canceling travel plans and extending school breaks. Brazil, where 56 people have died of the pandemic H1N1 flu virus, has Latin America’s lowest mortality rate from the illness at 0.02 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 0.41 in Argentina, 0.13 in Mexico and 0.11 in Chile, according to data as of July 29 from Brazil’s health ministry. The deaths in Brazil included 36 women, nine of whom were pregnant.

Outbreaks in Brazil and other Southern Hemisphere countries are providing clues about the germs’ ability to spread in winter, when most flu cases occur, and are helping authorities in North America and Europe anticipate its severity during their next flu season. Doctors are also trying to gauge whether the virus -- which has infected at least 125,000 people globally and killed about 800, according to the World Health Organization -- is becoming more lethal and resistant to drugs as more people catch it.

‘Too Big’

Government efforts to identify and isolate people infected with the virus and educate the public have helped curb the spread in Brazil, said Clelia Aranda, the coordinator of the Department of Disease Control in Sao Paulo.

“Our country is too big,” said Aranda, a pediatrician. “We need to have initiatives individualized to local realities, but without running away from a basic directive.”

In Brazil’s southern states, the area of the country that gets lower temperatures in winter, public schools delayed the return to classes after the winter break ends.

Classes in the states of Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul were postponed until Aug. 17 from July 27, affecting 8,137 public schools and 6.2 million students. In Rio de Janeiro and Parana, classes were put off until Aug. 10 and may be further delayed, affecting about 3,600 public schools and 2.9 million students, according to the Web sites of the states’ education offices. Several private schools followed, including Colegio Bandeirantes and Colegio Santa Cruz.

Canceled Trip

Maria Lucia Guedes, who works at Brazil’s state-run Banco do Brasil SA in Brasilia, canceled her family’s trip to Argentina in July, afraid of being infected. Her husband was uncomfortable traveling because a colleague was pregnant and “he thought it would be too much of a responsibility,” she said.

“It is not just the fear of getting sick, but also the fear for the other,” said Guedes, 49.

Denise Duarte Matta, a 40-year-old singer and teacher of Brazilian popular music, said she was more worried about swine flu before she got infected.

“I think there is a little sensationalism,” said Matta, coughing on the phone from her home in Sao Paulo. Both she and six-year-old daughter Maya Matta Lopes caught the virus and have been restricted to their home since July 22.

‘Little Terrified’

“I was also a little terrified before having it,” Matta said. “After I got it, I noticed it was something more controllable.”

Aranda, the pediatrician, said care is still required.

“It is important to be careful so we have the lowest number of cases and the lowest number of deaths,” Aranda said. “The mortality rate is low, but it exists.”

Even in Brazil, the country with the most Roman Catholics, Padre Beto considers outdated Saint Francis of Assisi’s habit, from the 1180s in Italy, of kissing wounds to cure the sick. “Francis’ act was medieval, as the extreme feast was,” he said. “It is a mystical exaggeration.”

Padre Beto, who also holds a doctorate in ethics from the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and teaches in the law program of Instituicao Toledo de Ensino in Bauru, faced a dilemma when called to a hospital to bless a Catholic with the swine flu. He declined, following a recommendation from the hospital crew.

“Even religious matters need to have a limit,” Padre Beto said. “I asked them to tell her we were praying for her.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Fabiola Moura in New York at fdemoura@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 3, 2009 23:00 EDT