Japan`s tally of new-flu infections reaches 292

TOKYO, May 21 Kyodo -
The tally of new-influenza infections in Japan continues to rise, reaching 292
on Thursday with Kyoto becoming the sixth Japanese prefecture with a patient,
while Tokyo reported its second infection case.
In Kyoto Prefecture, a 10-year-old boy in Kyoto City was confirmed to be
infected with the new H1N1 strain of influenza A, which could possibly deal a
blow to the city's renowned tourism industry.
In Tokyo, a woman in her 30s in Meguro Ward was found to have the new flu after
returning from San Francisco on Tuesday.
Several more cases of infection were also reported in Osaka and Hyogo
prefectures mostly among high school students but also including a 7-year-old
girl.
A day after two 16-year-old girls in Tokyo and its vicinity became the first
cases outside of western Japan, the central government and local authorities
continued efforts to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease.
The new H1N1 strain of influenza A ''has become substantially widespread inside
the country,'' Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe told
parliament, although the government maintains the country is still in the early
stage of a domestic outbreak.
''We intend to navigate our way in line with the ever-changing situation,
striking a balance (between the need for anti-epidemic measures and avoiding
strains on people's lives),'' Masuzoe said at a House of Councillors Budget
Committee session.
Meanwhile, the health ministry has started considering dividing the country
into three areas, depending on the level of spread, to adopt different measures
to cope with the disease, in a departure from the current unified measures
applied throughout the nation, government sources said.
The new plan will likely designate Hyogo and Osaka as ''an area with widespread
infections,'' Tokyo, Kanagawa and Shiga prefectures as ''an area with limited
infections,'' and the rest of the nation as ''an area without an infection.''
It is expected to be formalized Friday at a central government meeting that
will also consider altering the government's epidemic control measures from
ones aimed chiefly at preventing the new flu from entering Japan from abroad to
those for dealing with a spread within the country, the sources said.
''We need to have a recognition that we will shift to domestic measures from
measures (to prevent the entry of the new flu),'' Prime Minister Taro Aso told
reporters in the evening.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told a news conference that a spread of
the infection in the Tokyo metropolitan area can be contained, because the two
girls appear to have contracted the disease in the United States and not from
patients within Japan.
Health officials, meanwhile, confirmed the whereabouts of 17 people who were in
close contact with the girls during their flight back from New York, which
arrived at Narita international airport on Tuesday afternoon, and concluded
that none of the 17, including three Americans, was infected with the flu.
The girls, who attend Senzoku Gakuen High School in Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Prefecture, visited New York together to take part in a United Nations-related
event.
Other students and teachers who attended the same event in New York -- a model
U.N. conference -- as the infected girls have already been told to stay home
from school since returning to Japan, school and other officials said.
Ten students from five schools in Tokyo and its vicinity were among the roughly
2,200 people from 18 countries taking part in the event held May 14-16 at the
U.N. headquarters, according to the organizer, the United Nations Association
of the United States of America.
None of the Japanese participants, including the four Senzoku Gakuen girls and
their teacher, nor their family members has developed fever or other flu-like
symptoms, according to the school officials.
No infection has been reported by any other participant in the model
conference, the U.S. association said in New York on Wednesday local time.
The infected girls, from Hachioji in the suburbs of Tokyo and Kawasaki,
appeared to be recovering Thursday morning in hospitals with their temperatures
falling below 37 C, according to Senzoku Gakuen.
Since returning to Japan, the girls have had close contact only with their
family members and the chances they have spread the virus in the Tokyo
metropolitan area are low, the Tokyo and Kawasaki governments said.
The privately run Senzoku Gakuen decided early Thursday to close all its
institutions on the same premises, ranging from a kindergarten to a graduate
school, for seven days from Thursday.
However, the Kawasaki city office decided in a meeting Thursday afternoon not
to suspend public schools or cancel large gatherings for now.
==Kyodo