HEALTH-JAPAN: Winter Flu Wave Takes a Vicious Toll

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Feb 24 1998 (IPS) - Some of the world’s top athletes got it at the just-finished Winter Olympics at Nagano. Japanese pupils may have caught it in school, or salarymen in the country’s many crowded subways.

Whatever the exact cause, a severe flu epidemic is sweeping across Japan this winter and has prompted the country’s health officials to urge people to take extra precautions.

“Japan was relieved the bird flu in Hong Kong was not here. But this winter’s influenza has been devastating,” remarked an official at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “We are now requesting a special budget for flu protection to be better prepared for the next winter.”

More than 880,000 schoolchildren have contacted influenza during the last two months, forcing a record number of 21,000 schools to close.

The government says the total number of flu cases has now run to more than a million, a figure that is 20 times that of the same period last year. Thirty people, including 23 children, were reported to have died from complications caused by the flu.

To the embarrassment of Japan, which went to great lengths to hold a successful and organised Olympics, the flu wave extended to the ski slopes of Nagano.

Several Olympic ambitions were shattered by the flu. Canadian figure skaters Marie-Claude Savard-Gagnon and Luc Bradet fell ill with the flu, and Savard-Gagnon could not get through her routine. The Australian short-track speed skating team’s hopes of winning a medal were likewise dashed by illness.

Foreign and local athletes, sports officials and journalists succumbed to raging fever and respiratory ailments, prompting Games officials to air warnings against falling ill.

“We have asked everyone here to wear masks and gargle regularly because of the extra danger due to huge crowds of people gathered here,” explained a Games official last week.

While influenza is by no means strange to Japan, this year’s epidemic has been far worse than past ones. Health experts are seeking a closer examination of why the nation seems to be growing more susceptible to the flu virus.

Shudo Yamazaki, director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, says a first step is an increase in medical institutions — now numbering 2,461 — that monitor flu infections. He also called for the development of a vaccine against this year’s virus strain.

The Health and Welfare Ministry plans to collect flu viruses from around the world to beef up the country’s capability to counter new types of influenza. Scientists hope this virus bank, the first of its kind in the world, will allow them to produce vaccines for various strains of flu.

As things stand, medical experts say crowded Tokyo, teeming with more than 11 million people, is an excellent breeding ground for the virus.

The influenza epidemic has been particularly virulent in Tokyo and Osaka, the big cities where daily life brings crowds of people into close contact with one another. Some 77 percent of Japan’s 126 million people live in urban areas.

In Tokyo and other cities, the daily trip to work means hundreds of people crushed against each other in commuter trains. “Highly infectious diseases are easily transmitted in such an environment,” said Dr Juro Wada, a surgeon.

Also contributing to the rapid spread of influenza was the winter weather, which saw temperatures plummeting to below zero Celsius in January and February and dry northerly winds blowing across the country.

Kyoko Mita and her daughter Aya, 12, came down with the worst symptoms of influenza for the first time in their lives this year. Fevers of 40 degrees Celsius, severe headaches and rasping cough forced both them to stay in bed for two weeks.

“It was horrible,” said Mita. “We were loaded with antibiotics by the doctor, but nothing helped. Now my two elder children are not feeling well, and I fear it’s their turn. There is no protection because Japanese houses are so small and badly heated.”

Most homes in Tokyo have poor heating facilities, and central heating is a luxury only for the very rich. The average Japanese have small gas heaters in rooms or a ‘kotatsu’, a foot warmer that warms the body’s lower parts when sitting down.

Dr Mitusuro Uriyu says Japanese’ growing susceptibility to the flu may also be due to the habit by many doctors here of giving out large amounts of antibiotics to patients, merely as a precaution against possible complications from influenza.

“I am careful to give these medicines because of the bad aftereffects, such as the development of virulent strains that resist antibiotics,” he explained.

Mita says Japanese need to invest in less stressful lifestyles to have a better quality of life. The government, she says, should work on prevention methods such as easing congestion in the cities and setting aside more holidays for students and professionals.

“This is more important in the long run than expensive vaccines,” Mita explained. “Otherwise the future in big cities is going to be dangerous.”