With more cold days and severe winter weather still ahead in many parts of the country, Japan is already suffering a major outbreak of influenza. At the moment the epidemic appears heavily concentrated in the Tokyo metropolitan area, where close to 9,000 cases have now been registered, but many other prefectures are counting victims in the thousands. Deaths caused by influenza among the elderly are climbing daily. In too many instances, care facilities for the aged are reporting multiple fatalities from pneumonia triggered by the flu virus.

Health authorities report that the strain responsible for most reported cases this year is the Type A Hong Kong virus, identical to the strain that last winter caused Japan's worst flu epidemic in a decade. Why then wasn't the health-care establishment better prepared for this year's onslaught? One reason appears to be the presumption that the public develops a general immunity to a strain of the virus after an especially severe attack and is not as likely to be affected in the following year. That theory is being sorely tested now, with the Health and Welfare Ministry predicting that the number of reported cases will hit a peak in early February.

As always in outbreaks of this kind, those most at risk are the very young and the very old. The elderly in particular face the danger of developing pneumonia from what they at first assume is only a common cold. Children face the danger that infection with the influenza virus can trigger a fatal bout of meningitis or encephalitis -- inflammation of the brain. Although specialists in infectious diseases believe that well over three-fourths of the nation's children between the ages of 5 and 9 should have a high degree of immunity this year, close to 65,000 students at kindergartens, elementary schools, junior high and senior high schools have already been affected. That is still fewer than last year, but the worst could be yet to come.