Influenza Season Fully Starts in Japan

Tokyo, Sept. 6 (Jiji Press)--Japan has already entered this year's influenza season in earnest, the second earliest on record.

With the start of the new school term, students are having more opportunities to come into contact with each other, and experts are closely watching how the situation will develop.

The health ministry is calling on people to take basic infection control measures, such as washing hands and covering their mouths with their hands or handkerchiefs when coughing.

According to the government-affiliated Japan Institute for Health Security, the number of patients reported from regularly monitored medical institutions across the country started to increase in late June.

In the week to Aug. 23, the number of patients per institution came to 1.11, topping 1.0, a threshold for an outbreak.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]