Swine Flu Extends to Tokyo; Global Cases Top 11,000 (Update3) - Bloomberg.com

Swine Flu Extends to Tokyo; Global Cases Top 11,000 (Update3) - Bloomberg.com: "May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu spread to eastern Japan in an outbreak that’s infected more than 11,000 people worldwide.

Two students were confirmed as the first cases of the virus known as H1N1 in the Tokyo area after returning from a school trip to New York, government officials said. Infections in Japan have been concentrated in the western prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo and total 283 since the first case was detected in Japan earlier this month, the health ministry said today."

The World Health Organization’s flu preparedness alert is at phase 5, signaling a pandemic is imminent, and it’s monitoring the situation in Japan to assess the spread of infections. The cases in the Tokyo area, the world’s largest metropolis with a population of 35.7 million, come after the government this week shut 4,464 schools in western Japan.

“At this point it is possible to prevent a large-scale spread of the virus in Tokyo because this was not a person-to- person transmission within Japan,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said at a briefing in Tokyo today.

Global cases of swine flu totaled 11,034 in 41 countries, including 85 deaths, according to the WHO’s latest tally.

The U.S. and Mexico have been hardest hit by the outbreak, accounting for about 90 percent of the case total. Mexico City lowered its health alert today to “green” from “yellow,” signaling a return to normal economic activities following the swine flu outbreak. The last case occurred a week ago, the city government said in a statement.

Pandemic Alert

Evidence of an outbreak within the community in at least one country in a different region could prompt the WHO to raise its pandemic alert to 6, the highest level. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan today told a meeting of health ministers in Geneva that she would declare a pandemic if the new virus becomes “a global phenomenon.”

The Japanese cases look to be “well established” in schools in Osaka and Hyogo, Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the Geneva-based WHO, said yesterday. “We have to understand whether or not this is in the community.”

The western Japan outbreak included three workers at branches of McDonald’s Holdings Co. (Japan) Ltd. in Hyogo prefecture, spokesman Kenji Kaniya said today by telephone. The employees are high school and university students, he said.

Tokyo Cases

The first two cases in the Tokyo area are two 16-year-old girls from the same high school in Kawasaki, a city adjacent to the capital, who returned from a weeklong trip to New York on May 19, the Tokyo city government said in a statement today. The two, who attended a United Nations event in New York involving participants from different countries, are in the hospital with flu symptoms including high temperature, the government said.

Japan follows New York in closing schools because of the outbreak. New York City said yesterday two more schools will shut because of increased flu-like symptoms. In the past week, New York has closed 17 schools in Queens, one in Brooklyn and one in Lower Manhattan, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.

Starting today, Hong Kong will stop isolating people who may have had contact with swine flu patients and instead require them to report daily to seven designated clinics and take Tamiflu, an antiviral drug, the city’s Department of Health said in a statement. People already under quarantine are being released today under the same arrangement, the department said.

‘Long-Term Battle’

Containing the spread of swine flu is a “long-term battle,” Hong Kong’s Secretary for Food and Health York Chow told reporters at a briefing today. The government advises people to maintain normal travel activity as the outbreak is “not so deadly” although the number of confirmed cases is rising, he said.

The U.K., which reported its first swine flu infections on April 27, confirmed three new cases for a total of 112, mostly in travelers or close contacts of those infected, the country’s Health Protection Agency said. Another 166 people are being tested for the virus, the agency said today in an e-mailed statement.

Australian authorities shut a school in the southeastern state of Victoria after three brothers contracted swine flu, taking the country’s total number of infections to six. The boys, aged 9, 10 and 12, visited the U.S. this month and were confirmed to be carrying the virus yesterday, Health Minister Nicola Roxon said.

China confirmed its fifth case, a 21-year-old Canadian male of Chinese origin who arrived in Beijing from Toronto, the Ministry of Health said yesterday. The man is in a stable condition and people who had close contact with him are under medical observation, the ministry said in a statement.