New flu strain confirmed in Turkey and India

By Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey and India confirmed their first cases of H1N1 flu on Saturday, all involving airline passengers arriving from the United States.

Thirty-eight countries have now confirmed cases of the flu strain, a mix of swine, human and avian viruses, which last month prompted the World Heath Organization to raise its global pandemic alert level to 5 on a 6-point scale.

The western Japanese city of Kobe said it would close some public schools for a week after eight people were confirmed as being infected with the new H1N1 influenza, commonly known as swine flu.

Three of the eight were teenage students from the same school -- the first confirmed cases in Japan involving people who had not been overseas. The other five were from another school, Kyodo news agency said.

"We are just watching the developments very carefully," acting assistant WHO Director-General Keiji Fukuda told reporters. Fukuda said it was not clear at this stage whether the outbreak in Japan would cause the WHO to declare a full pandemic.

The WHO, whose data lags national tallies, earlier put the number of confirmed worldwide cases at 8,451, with 72 deaths.

The vast majority of deaths have been in Mexico, where the outbreak started. The United States has reported five, and Canada and Costa Rica one each.

Mexico's Health Ministry on Saturday raised the number of confirmed H1N1 flu deaths in that country to 68, up two from the previous total.