Japan intensified follow-up checks to prevent the spread of swine flu Sunday after confirming its first cases of the virus in four Japanese recently returned from a trip to North America.
The health ministry announced early Sunday that a male high school student had tested positive for the A(H1N1) influenza virus in Japan's fourth confirmed case.
He was among 49 passengers who arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport on a flight from the US city of Detroit on Friday. The group was quarantined because they were seated close to the first three Japanese people found to have the virus.
They were taken to a hotel near the airport to be isolated for 10 days.
The ministry said it was also monitoring the condition of other people who had already entered Japan after arriving on the same Northwest Airlines flight. They have spread to 26 of the country's 47 prefectures.
"We will continue observing the health conditions of the 163 people by telephone calls and through their local public health centres for 10 days," said Yukiko Nakatani, an official at the ministry's medical department.
"We cannot say anything definite about the possibility of the disease spreading domestically," she told AFP.
The ministry said on Saturday that a 46-year-old male teacher and two of the student's male schoolmates, both 16, who had been on a study trip to Canada, tested positive for the virus. They were from a high school in Osaka, western Japan.
They stayed in Oakville, west of Toronto, from April 24 until last Thursday.
There were 409 passengers and crew members aboard the flight and many of them have travelled on to other countries after changing planes at Narita.
Nakatani said the conditions of the first three patients had improved.
"The teacher's body temperature is slightly high but those of the students have returned to normal," she said, adding that the fourth patient was in a "stable condition."
Japanese newspapers, warning the domestic spread of swine flu might be inevitable, urged the government Sunday to take effective measures against the viral infections.
The business daily Nikkei said, "It will become important hereafter to keep track of virus carriers as soon as possible and locally contain secondary infections."
Major daily Mainichi Shumbun called on the government to "prepare for a long-running battle" against the disease.
Japan has been on high alert as one of the year's busiest travel periods came to an end, the "Golden Week" of public holidays when tens of millions travel domestically and overseas.
0 comments:
Post a Comment