According to the World Health Organisation, whose assembly opens today, about 8,500 cases have been reported to date with 72 deaths, including a school vice-principal in New York. First A (H1N1) patient in China recovers. US experts say 100,000 people infected in the United States, but virus is behaving like any ordinary seasonal flu.

Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Japan is in heightened state of readiness after the number of confirmed swine flu cases reaches 93, mostly in and around the western cities of Kobe and Osaka, where authorities ordered more than 1,000 schools and kindergartens to stay shut on Monday. Coincidentally the World Health Organisation (WHO) annual assembly opened on the same day in Geneva to discuss ways to contain the spread of the A (H1N1) virus and the development of a vaccine.

In Japan Prime Minister Taro Aso has urged the public to “be careful, but with quick treatment patients can recover."

Japanese authorities have taken steps to reduce the potential for infection in the sporting arenas. At a national sumo wrestling competition in Tokyo on Sunday officials sprayed disinfectant on the hands of every spectator as they arrived.

The outbreak has caused alarm in Japan, where people routinely wear face masks on public transport to prevent the spread of coughs and colds.

Swine flu will be discussed at the WHO annual assembly. Nearly 8,500 people in 39 countries have been infected with swine flu, including Japan, China, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Turkey, Hong Kong and India. The number of people killed by the virus also rose to 72, including a school vice-principal in the State of New York.

Mainland China's first confirmed patient, a 30-year-old man from Sichuan province who recently returned from studies in the US, was discharged from hospital yesterday afternoon.

Xinhua said that 282 people, who were quarantined in the south-western province of Sichuan and in Beijing for being in contact with people with the flu, were released on Saturday. None of them showed any symptoms of the flu.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has reported only 4,714 confirmed and likely infections so far, but it estimated that at least 100,000 Americans had been infected with the virus, which has been behaving much like seasonal flu—spreading rapidly and causing mainly mild disease, but severe illness in some people.

Victims are individuals with risk factors and some patients develop a particular virulent form of the disease.

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