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Swine Flu is hitting Japan.

by Uwe Paschen | May 17, 2009 at 09:16 pm

813 views | 48 Recommendations | 3 comments

By, Uwe Paschen.

Swine Flu is hitting Japan now.

Recently the cases of Swine Flu patients have risen in Japan in spite of quarantines earlier and health alerts. Those affected the most seem to be young and students as well as School employs such as teachers.

44 new cases have been reported in Japan, the last one was confirmed on Sunday, another high school student was hospitalised.

Some sources put the total number of positive cases at 93 by now for Japan alone.

The reason for the spreading of the virus among High school students and staff may be the Japanese culture it self, which does value work and discipline as well as coming to work no matter what, or regardless of how sick one may feel.

It is custom to go to school and work even with a cold or severe flue, just wearing a mask so others may not be infected. Japan's schools are extremely clean though and well maintained.

These precaution may work well in the adult world and as long as hands are washed rather often. However with Kids and teens this is another story and they do need to be reminded still to wash their hands often and keep the mask on at all times.

Why, the virus seems to spread especially and so far mainly among High schools Students and to some extend the staff as well.

The WHO in Geneva is so concerned about this development to the point that one of its head advisors, John Mackenzie, told the Japanese NHK news, that the WHO may have to raise the alert to the highest level, since all contaminations in the high Schools in Japan are Human to Human and affect mainly the youth.

Prime minister Aso has called for calm and refused to implement blanked measures to counter the flue epidemic such as advising people to stay home. The PM of Japan also stated that since the large majority of people that contracted the flue have since recovered completely; it would be overreacting to implement an advisory at this point.

You may see the NHK interview, English version by going to this link bellow.

http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/18_14.html?play

http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/18_18.html

http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/flu.html

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tlreed

at 22:45 on May 17th, 2009

Thank you for writing this Paschen. This is not the first time that disease has spread quickly in Japan's schools. It is really hard to understand, the schools are so clean, the parents and staff so careful, but I guess that kids are kids and should stay home if they get sick. It is really tragic that the schools get hit the worst. I can see the need to close some of the schools during this crisis.

slimmey

at 05:14 on May 29th, 2009

Thanks for the post Uwe, I've been following the flu on a local basis, and I do get somehow annoyed about the way our local media deals with the flu. They compare the swine flu with the Spanish flu of 1917.