h1n1

is the situation about h1n1 in tokyo very bad? very worried as we are going there in sep. anyone knows the situation? should we cancel our trip?

No, there is nothing to be worried about. H1N1 is less harmful than the regular flu.

The talk about H1N1 had been very low for months as the disease had very little affect; just high fever that lasted for a few days.

But suddenly in the past week (15th, 18th, 19th) 3 people in Japan died being triggered by H1N1. The Ministry suspects that once schools start in September, H1N1 is likely to spread as it has mainly been spread among senior high school students.

But living in Japan (with a senior high school student at home on vacation) I personally feel no threat, and even now that people are dying, not many locals are putting on masks any more.

Also, I'm not sure if avoiding a trip to Japan will solve your problem, because for example, Japanese schools are avoiding trips to overseas countries. My son's school even canceled the trip to Malaysia and decided to fly to Okinawa instead. I don't know if that even makes a difference. No one really knows for sure what country to avoid or whether you should avoid anything at all.

This is an English news site just for reference.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/swine_flu.html

I live in Tokyo, and I haven't caught the flu, and neither has anyone I know. At any one time maybe 100 or so people in Tokyo have that flu, and you would actually have to come in contact with one of those people (in a city of 20,000,000!) to be infected- does that sound very risky to you?

Incidentally, if you had come last September you would have had at least as much chance of catching ordinary seasonal flu, which is a more serious illness than H1N1. Would you have worried about that? Why does this flu concern you so much when it is not a serious illness in a healthy person?

H1N1 is more hysteria than anything else. More people die yearly from the seasonal flu than have died from this "pandemic".

It is important to note that the 3 people who have died were already in very poor health (kidney and heart failure) and two of them were elderly. If it hadn't been H1N1 it would have been ordinary flu or even just a cold that would have carried them off. Healthy people do not die of this flu.

I know a number of people in New Zealand who have now had it, including babies and small children, and all have recovered quickly.

We had about 15 people died from the new H1N1 virus in New Zealand and most of them already had serious medical conditions or respiratory problems before they were infected.

So technically, the death is not 100% caused by the flu along but there are one or two who died has no underlying medical conditions.

Anyway, it's not that serious, pretty much like the ordinary flu... I think it's the "mutation" that the WHO is worrying about.

The best place for info that I can think of is:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/swine_flu.html

There are lots of articles and news reports there on it. They update it often.

There is nothing to worry about, this H1N1 is more media hysteria then anything else.

More people die eating mochi each year, or of the regular cold then they do of H1N1.

I live in the Tokyo area and there's no worries for me.

thank you all,gives me a peace of mind.