Japan Enters Flu Season for 1st Time in 3 Years

Tokyo, Dec. 28 (Jiji Press)--Japan has entered the influenza season nationwide, the health ministry said Wednesday.

The nationwide flu spread came for the first time in three years. As COVID-19 is also continuing to spread, the ministry is increasingly concerned about a "twindemic."

The ministry made the announcement based on reports from 5,000 regularly monitored medical institutions across the country.

In the week through Sunday, the number of flu patients surged more than twofold from the previous week to 6,103, or 1.24 per reporting institution.

The ministry declares a flu epidemic if the per-institution figure exceeds one.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]