Three Japanese test positive for H1N1 flu
Posted: 09 May 2009 0544 hrs

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TOKYO: A teacher and two students have tested positive for H1N1 flu in the first confirmed cases of the virus in Japan, the health ministry said on Saturday.

The three, including a man in his 40s and two teenagers from Osaka, arrived at Tokyo's Narita international airport Friday from Detroit, the ministry said.

"We confirmed the first case of the new type influenza in Japan," said Atsushi Kitamura, a health ministry spokesman.

Preliminary tests carried out on the three showed they tested positive for influenza A. They were then taken to hospital, where further tests were conducted, he said.

The three were among 392 passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight that arrived at Narita airport around 4:30 pm (0730 GMT). They had stayed in Oakville, Canada, on a school trip and had developed symptoms such as coughing, the ministry said, according to local media.

Kyodo News said all three who tested positive were male.

On Friday, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone told reporters in Tokyo a six-year-old Japanese boy who lives in the American city of Chicago was confirmed to have contracted the A(H1N1) virus, making him the first Japanese national to be infected with the disease.

The boy had already recovered, a foreign ministry official said, adding that it was not immediately known how he was infected.

The country has been on high alert for the virus during one of its busiest travel periods of the year, the "Golden Week" of public holidays when tens of millions of people crowd trains and airports to visit family and friends.

Japan's leading expert on infectious diseases has urged more medical measures to prepare for an outbreak, rather than focusing on prevention.

"It is not a matter of 'if.' It (the virus) will come in," said Nobuhiko Okabe, director of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Centre.

"It would be wise to switch the emphasis of our strategies by assuming that the virus will spread," he said, suggesting more medical staff be deployed to clinics, rather than work in airports and quarantine programmes.

He added that "it would be difficult to contain an outbreak in a city such Tokyo. It would be difficult to control it."

Greater Tokyo, with almost 36 million people, is the world's most populous urban area, according to the United Nations, far ahead of New York-Newark, Mexico City, Mumbai and Sao Paulo.

In its latest figures, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that 2,500 people in 26 countries had tested positive for the A(H1N1) virus. - AFP/de