According to Nature, thousands of people have been infected with the flu virus.Japan's health department recently announced that the country has entered a pandemic period.The researchers said,The scale of influenza virus infection this year is extraordinary and may trigger outbreaks in Asian and European countries that are approaching winter.
As of 10 October,Japan has 6,013 cases of influenza infection, and more than 100 schools have been closed.。 Of the 287 people hospitalized with the flu in September, nearly half were children aged 14 and younger. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced on October 3rd that Japan has entered an influenza pandemic. An outbreak is considered an epidemic when the number of infections in a specific area exceeds expectations during a specific period of time.
Influenza virus usually outbreaks seasonally every year, mainly in winter in temperate countries. In Japan, the peak flu season usually occurs in late November. Vinod Balasubramaniam, a molecular virologist at Monash University Malaysia Campus in Australia, pointed out that,The increase in the number of flu patients visiting this year is five weeks earlier than in previous years.
Ian Barr, deputy director of the World Health Organization's Centre for Influenza Comparison and Research Cooperation, said the influenza season in Japan has come earlier in the past few years, but there are no cases likely to occur in October as early as this year, but will not reach the epidemic scale," he said.
Balasubramaniam points out that increased international travel after the epidemic may be one of the reasons for the early arrival of the flu season.Other factors include climate change, as well as the lack of opportunities for populations to be exposed to the epidemic, especially the elderly and young children.
Information on the strain circulating in Japan has not been released, but Barr pointed out that the outbreak may have been triggered by a strain of influenza A called H3N2. In the past two months, the virus has surged in Australia and New Zealand. He said that a large number of Australia people traveling to Japan means that the risk of the virus spreading between the northern and southern hemispheres increases significantly.
Balasubramaniam said that other countries, including Malaysia, also experienced an early flu season this year, with the H3N2 strain dominating. About 6,000 students werely infected in Malaysia and some schools had been shut down. Barr said that there has been an early rise in influenza cases in Australia and New Zealand, and more than one strain of the virus has appeared in the outbreak.
Barr pointed out that as countries in the southern hemisphere are entering a warm season, the spread of the virus will weaken,Japan’s current flu outbreak is unlikely to evolve into a global pandemic, but it is likely to spread from Japan to neighbouring countries, or along the route from Japan.”Barr said countries that are entering winter are more prone to outbreaks.
Xinmin Evening News (xmwb1929) ComprehensiveChinese Scientific Newspapers, First Finance, News Morning