A baby who arrived Friday at the U.S. Yokota Air Base in Tokyo from the United States has tested positive for type-A influenza in a preliminary exam and may be the first case here of the new H1N1 strain, the Foreign Ministry said on the heels of reports that two Japanese earlier suspected of having caught the virus were in fact suffering other forms of flu.
A Yokohama high school boy who recently visited Canada had earlier been suspected of carrying the new strain, but a followup test turned out negative, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Friday.
Health minister Yoichi Masuzoe, breathing a sigh of relief, said the youth had the Soviet A-type influenza, not the swine-avian-human flu that first surfaced in Mexico and is causing pandemic fears.