Future health problems directly linked to radiation exposure from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan are "unlikely to be discernible," a U.N. panel has stated.

A reported increase in the number of local children diagnosed with thyroid cancer is not the result of radiation exposure, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said in a report it released Tuesday.

The increase in thyroid cancer is believed to have originated from "ultrasensitive screening procedures that have revealed the prevalence of thyroid abnormalities in the population not previously detected," the report said.