With the earlier-than-usual arrival of warm weather, the influenza season in Japan is almost over, and the number of patients reported to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is down 40 percent from last year. However, the danger of the bird flu virus mutating and a new type of influenza breaking out still exists.

In preparation for such an outbreak either in Japan or overseas, a study group of the Health Ministry is working out countermeasures. Along with such efforts, it is important to publicize concrete directives, including how medical institutions and schools should respond, as quickly as possible.

At a meeting of the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases held in Tokyo earlier this month, Mr. Nobuhiko Okabe, the head of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, likened the danger of a new type of influenza to "a long fuse that has been lighted." The highly pathogenic bird influenza virus H5N1, which has broken out in Asia, does not normally infect human beings. However, in Asian markets where a large number of live birds are sold, or in environments where particles of dried bird droppings are blown around, people who breathe in large amounts of the virus can, in rare cases, be infected.