TOKYO — Japan and Hong Kong reported Friday that they have each found a patient with the type of swine flu that has proven resistance to Tamiflu — days after Denmark reported the first such case.

Kwan Weng Kin
The Straits Times
Publication Date: 28-06-2009
If the cabin attendant had not said that all passengers would be screened, I probably would not have even noticed the discreetly placed thermal scanner as I walked towards the immigration checkpoint after getting off a flight from Singapore last week .

TOKYO — Japan moved closer on Thursday to allowing children to receive organ transplants, when parliament’s lower house approved a bill to scrap age limits on who can become an organ donor. Japan currently only allows organ transplants from brain dead people aged 15 or over, so sick children in need of organs must travel [...]

News Desk
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Publication Date: 14-06-2009
If production of a vaccine against the new strain of influenza begins by mid-July, there would be enough for about 25 million people by the end of the year, according to an estimate by the Japanese health, labour and welfare ministry.

TOKYO, June 11 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry found Thursday that the ratio of those who have used cannabis among people aged 15 or older increased 2.6-fold in a decade up to 2005 in Japan.

The Japanese government has set three major tasks to cope with a possible second wave of the new influenza strain: Beef up the flu-surveillance system; develop a vaccine against the flu; and develop a new test kit to check more accurately for infection.

TOKYO: The spread of the H1N1 virus in Asia showed no signs of slowing yesterday as the Philippines recorded its first case and new infections were confirmed here, in Taiwan and in Beijing.

TOKYO (AFP) - The number of worldwide swine flu infections surged past 10,000 on Wednesday, as the epidemic gathered pace in the United States and the first case was recorded in Tokyo.

A US-Japanese research team announced it had isolated three genes that explain why the 1918 Spanish flu, believed to be the deadliest infectious disease in history, was so lethal.
“Conventional flu viruses replicate mainly in the upper respiratory tract: the mouth, nose and throat,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who co-authored the study along [...]