Tag: Japan

Categories : Diseases, Syndromes and ConditionsTags :

New Infectious Tick-borne Virus Emerges in Japan

On By ModernMedia
Source: NCI on Unsplash

A previously unknown virus that can infect humans and cause disease has been identified by scientists in Japan. The novel infectious virus, named Yezo virus and transmitted by tick bites, causes a disease characterised by fever and a drop in blood platelets and leucocytes. The discovery was reported in Nature Communications.

Keita Matsuno, a virologist at Hokkaido University’s International Institute for Zoonosis Control, said: “At least seven people have been infected with this new virus in Japan since 2014, but, so far, no deaths have been confirmed.”

The Yezo virus was discovered in 2019 after a 41-year-old man was hospitalised with fever and leg pain after a possible tick bite while walking in a local forest. He was treated and discharged after two weeks, but tests showed he had not been infected with any known viruses carried by ticks in the region. A second patient showed up with similar symptoms after a tick bite the following year.

Genetic analysis of viruses isolated from blood samples of the two patients found a new type of orthonairovirus, a class of nairoviruses. This class includes pathogens such as the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus. The scientists named it Yezo virus, after an old name for Hokkaido, the northern Japanese island where the pathogen was discovered. The new virus was found to be closely related to Sulina virus and Tamdy virus, detected in Romania and Uzbekistan, respectively, and recently Tamdy virus reportedly caused acute fever in humans in China.

The researchers then analysed blood samples taken from hospital patients who showed similar symptoms after tick bites since 2014, finding additional positive samples from five patients. These patients, including the first two, had a fever and reduced blood platelets and leucocytes, and showed indicators of abnormal liver function.

To determine the likely source of the virus, the research team screened samples collected from wild animals in the area between 2010 and 2020. They found antibodies for the virus in deer and raccoons and the virus RNA was also found in three major species of ticks in Hokkaido. Matsuno noted that, “The Yezo virus seems to have established its distribution in Hokkaido, and it is highly likely that the virus causes the illness when it is transmitted to humans from animals via ticks.”

As the COVID pandemic has shown, many unknown viruses are present in animal and some can jump to humans. “All of the cases of Yezo virus infection we know of so far did not turn into fatalities, but it’s very likely that the disease is found beyond Hokkaido, so we need to urgently investigate its spread,” said Matsuno.

The research team now plans to determine the distribution of the virus nationwide.

Source: Hokkaido University

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Japan Tries to Curb COVID with Public Shaming

On By ModernMedia
A train station in Japan. Photo by Zhipeng Ya on Unsplash

The Japanese government, struggling to control its latest and largest COVID outbreak while maintaining the Olympic bubble, is turning to a new tactic — public shaming.

On Monday, Japan’s health ministry released the names of three people who broke COVID rules after returning from overseas. An official statement said that the three people, two returning from South Korea and one from Hawaii, had clearly acted to avoid contact with the authorities.

All three had negative virus tests on arrival at the airport but thereafter neglected to report their health condition and did not respond to location-monitoring apps or video calls from the health authorities.

In May, the Japanese government had said that about 100 people a day were flouting the border control rules, and warned that it would disclose the names of violators soon.

Japanese authorities are struggling to adapt their COVID response as caseloads surge to their highest levels of the pandemic and vaccinations continue to lag behind other wealthy nations. Public fatigue seems to be setting in from the on-and-off emergency measures the government has imposed in various cities.

And in the face of rising cases, the Japanese government failed to speed up its vaccination campaign. It has maintained that hosting the Olympics inside a tightly controlled bubble, with spectators and athletes isolated from the public, did risk exacerbating the outbreak.

While comparatively few infections have occurred inside the Games, totalling about 300 so far, some Japanese people say that seeing the Olympics held in Tokyo has encouraged them to relax against the virus. The first cases were reported on July 17, with two members of the South Africa soccer team testing positive despite having tested negative on their departure.

Yet the outbreak has continued to worsen. On Tuesday, officials said they had recorded more than 8300 daily cases across Japan, slightly down from the weekend’s record high of more than 10 000. A total of 3709 cases were reported in Tokyo, also slightly lower than previous days.

On Monday the government said that it would hospitalise only those with severe cases of COVID, to avoid increasing the strain on hospitals, suggesting that they are already starting to struggle with the influx of cases.

Source: New York Times

Categories : COVIDTags :

Human Rights Commission Inundated with Complaints of Pressure to Vaccinate

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said that it had been inundated with complaints from people who claimed they had been pressured to get a COVID vaccination. These included tenants being threatened with eviction if they did not vaccinate.

Employees and tenants were not the only ones coming forward; companies had also approached the commission for guidance and clarification. The situation is something of a grey area for employers, according to the Department of Labour’s director-general Thobile Lamati.

“Can the employer then force the employees to take the vaccine? This is a very difficult question because we have different work places and different situations,” he said, adding that a worker could not be compelled to take a vaccine without the risks being explained to them.

On Friday morning, acting Health Minister Mmamaloko Kubayi-Ngubane reiterated that vaccination was purely voluntary and confirmed that employers were not allowed to force workers to get the jab.

Nevertheless, the government is encouraging all eligible South Africans to achieve herd immunity, and exit the cycle of waves and economically crippling lockdowns. However, inoculation has not been mandatory, with a target of around two-thirds of the population vaccinated. In a statement, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that only one in ten South Africans now believed that COVID vaccines were not safe.

The commission’s Buang Jones said they would also be examining the reasons given by some people refusing to receive vaccines.

“The reasons may range from medical, religious or other constitutional accounts. But complainants will be requested to take us through their reasoning and the team will be offering advice to those who have complained to the commission.”

Jones said that companies also voiced concerns about the negative impact that COVID had had on their finances.

“That they would like staff to be at work and ensure that the company functions optimally. Their concern is there will be increases in sick leave taken and it will affect production. They are also concerned about the rights of other employees to have chosen to take the vaccine.”

Source: Eyewitness News

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

First Olympic COVID Cases Among SA Soccer Team

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Bryan Turner on Unsplash
Photo by Bryan Turner on Unsplash

Three members of the South African soccer team staying in the Olympic Village have tested positive for COVID just days before the Olympic opening ceremonies. They are also the first Olympic athletes who tested positive in the tightly-monitored athletes’ enclave along a Tokyo waterfront.

The South African team said in a July 17 statement that defender Thabiso Monyane, midfielder Kamohelo Mahlatsi, and Mario Masha, a video analyst on the coaching staff, had tested positive on the weekend. All South African players had tested negative when they departed for Tokyo on July 13. The entire South African football team is now under quarantine, raising doubts whether they’ll be cleared for their July 22 match against Japan.

Since the announcement, South African rugby Sevens coach Neil Powell as well as an unnamed member of the female US gymnastics team have also tested positive. Outside the athlete’s complex, positive results have been reported for South Korean IOC official Ryu Seung, an unnamed member of the Nigerian delegation, and an unnamed athlete.

Despite the country’s best efforts to contain the virus, COVID remains a big concern in Tokyo at the world’s largest sporting event, expected to draw about 11 000 athletes from 200 nations. The Tokyo Olympic Committee has introduced measures such as banning spectators at games, daily COVID screening for athletes, and limiting stays at the Olympic Village to seven days.

With Japan still under a state of emergency and the COVID delta variant spreading rapidly, many continue to appeal to the International Olympic Committee to cancel the games. But some experts said that at this point a cancellation would cost Japan $16.4 billion. It would also run the risk of being sued by the IOC for breach of contract.

Addressing the outbreaks in an effort to rally local support for the events, IOC president Thomas Bach said, “We are well aware of the skepticism a number of people have here in Japan,” he said. “My appeal to the Japanese people is to welcome the athletes for their competitions.”

Source: Quartz

Categories : COVIDTags :

Experts Urge a Re-think on Olympic Games

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With 100 days remaining until the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games, experts urge that the organisers must urgently reconsider plans to hold the games this summer.

Writing in The BMJ, Kazuki Shimizu at the London School of Economics and Political Science and colleagues said that the trajectory of the pandemic is still highly uncertain, warning that international mass gathering events such as Tokyo 2020 “are still neither safe nor secure”.

They say instead that “we must accelerate efforts towards containing and ending the pandemic by maintaining public health and social measures, promoting behavior change, disseminating vaccines widely, and strengthening health systems.”

While considerable scientific advancements have taken place over the past year, they said that vaccine roll-out has been inequitable, with many low and middle income countries having reduced access.

While a special scheme for vaccinating athletes orchestrated by the Olympics Organising Committee may help save lives, they argued that “it could also encourage vaccine diplomacy, undermine global solidarity (including the Covax global access scheme), and promote vaccine nationalism.”

Another concern that they highlighted was the fact that Japan, unlike neighbouring countries in the Asia-Pacific region, still has not achieved COVID containment.

“Even healthcare workers and other high risk populations will not have access to vaccines before Tokyo 2020, to say nothing of the general population,” they write.

In order to effectively protect participants from COVID, “Japan must develop and implement a clear strategy to eliminate community transmission within its borders, as Australia did before the Australian Open tennis tournament.”

Japan and the International Olympic Committee must also agree to operational plans based on robust science and share them with the international community, they added.

Waiving quarantine for incoming athletes, officials, broadcasters, press, and marketing partners “risks importing and spreading covid-19 variants of concern” and while international spectators will be excluded from the games, “cases could rise across Japan and be exported globally because of increased domestic travel – as encouraged by Japan’s official campaigns in 2020.”
However, a recent survey indicated that 70% of Japanese would not want to attend the Olympic Games, due to COVID.

An overwhelmed healthcare system combined with an ineffective test trace and isolate scheme “could seriously undermine Japan’s ability to manage Tokyo 2020 safely and contain any outbreak caused by mass mobilization,” they write.

They also highlight the fact that there has been very little about the Paralympic games through official channels, and how the health and rights of disabled people will be protected during international competition.
“The whole global community recognizes the need to contain the pandemic and save lives. Holding Tokyo 2020 for domestic political and economic purposes – ignoring scientific and moral imperatives – is contradictory to Japan’s commitment to global health and human security,” they argued.

“We must reconsider this summer’s games and instead collaborate internationally to agree a set of global and domestic conditions under which international multisport events can be held in the years ahead. These conditions must embody both Olympic and Paralympic values and adhere to international principles of public health,” they concluded.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Journal information: Shimizu, K., et al. (2021) Reconsider this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic games. BMJ. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n962.

Categories : COVIDTags :

Wrong Syringes in Japan Will Waste Millions of Vaccine Doses

On By ModernMedia

When it begins inoculations, Japan will lose millions of vaccine doses because of a lack of the ‘low dead space’ syringes needed to extract the maximum number doses from each vial.

Japan had ordered 144 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine on the assumption that each vial equated to six doses. Low dead space syringes leave less vaccine in the syringe after injection, especially around the base of the needle, and result in minimal wastage. However, since low dead space syringes are in short supply in that country, regular syringes will have to be used which can only withdraw enough vaccine for five doses. This will result in the wastage of up to 24 million doses of vaccine.

“The syringes used in Japan can only draw five doses,” health minister Norihisa Tamura said, quoted by the Kyodo news agency. “We will use all the syringes we have that can draw six doses, but it will, of course, not be enough as more shots are administered.”

In large-scale vaccination programmes, the wasted vaccine in each vial becomes an issue. Skill is a factor in preserving the vaccine, but the amount of dead space in a syringe and the achievable accuracy also has a significant effect. One study showed that the amount that can be withdrawn from each vial can vary by as much 42% depending on the type of syringe used.
The US and EU have also reported shortages of low dead space syringes, and this may result in competition and supply shortages.

Japan is set to begin the first round of inoculations with 10 000 to 20 000 healthcare workers, and from there giving priority to other healthcare workers and vulnerable individuals. Inoculations for those aged 16 to 59 are not expected to begin until July.

Source: The Guardian