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TOKYO (AFP) - - A Japanese teacher and two students returning from North America have tested positive for swine flu in the first confirmed cases of the virus in the island nation, the government said Saturday.
Japanese authorities quarantined the three males, who had been on a high school trip to Canada, and 49 others who were aboard their flight which arrived Friday at Tokyo's Narita international airport from the US city of Detroit.
Prime Minister Taro Aso said the three cases were not considered a domestic outbreak of the A(H1N1) virus because they were intercepted at the airport.
"I would like people to act calmly but stay alert while paying attention to information given by the government and local authorities," he said.
News of the Japanese infections comes as Australia on Saturday reported its first case of the virus, after a woman tested positive for the disease as she returned from a trip to the United States, the government said.
"We have a person who had contracted the disease overseas and has fully recovered by the time they returned to Australia," Health Minister Nicola Roxon said.
In Japan Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said the government was trying to contact for testing all of the 391 passengers and 21 crew who were on the Northwest Airlines flight that arrived around 4:30 pm (0730 GMT) Friday.
"All the passengers who were aboard the plane could possibly have contracted the flu," he said. "We want to track all of them down by this evening."
The 46-year-old teacher and two 16-year-old students from the western city of Osaka tested positive for influenza and, in follow-up genetic tests, for swine flu, after they arrived in Japan, officials said.
Authorities quarantined them and also moved 49 other passengers, whose nationalities were not immediately released, to a hotel near the airport to be isolated for the next 10 days, ministry officials said.
The teacher and students had stayed in Oakville, Canada, on a school trip from April 24 until last Thursday, officials said.
"They developed symptoms such as coughing and temperatures when they arrived yesterday," a ministry spokesman said after the cases were announced Saturday.
The teacher remained sick while the two students were recovering, with their temperatures returning to normal, said the health minister.
Canada has the third highest number of swine flu infections , with 224 cases, and reported its first death Friday.
The same day the United States overtook Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak, to become the country with the most patients, 1,639 cases in 43 states, according to statistics released in the US.
On Friday, Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said in Tokyo that a six-year-old Japanese boy living in Chicago had become the first Japanese national to have contracted the A(H1N1) virus.
The boy had already recovered, a foreign ministry official said.
Japan has been on high alert this week as one of the year's busiest travel periods came to an end, the "Golden Week" of public holidays when tens of millions travel domestically and overseas.
Japan's leading expert on infectious diseases Friday urged more medical measures to prepare for a domestic outbreak.
"It is not a matter of 'if.' It (the virus) will come in," said Nobuhiko Okabe, director of the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center.
Greater Tokyo, with almost 36 million people, is the world's most populous urban area, according to United Nations data, far ahead of New York-Newark, Mexico City, Mumbai and Sao Paulo.
In Hong Kong on Friday over 280 guests and staff who had been forced to spend a week quarantined in their city-centre hotel, following concerns they may have contracted the virus, were finally released.
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