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Control of pandemics requires strong leadership not only by central government but also in local fields, where people actually fight against it. Miyagi Pandemic Influenza Study Group was organized in Sendai area, Japan, in February 2001, and an attempt to study preparation against pandemic influenza was started. Its members are from local governments and hospitals including administrative officers, physicians and laboratory workers, and other functions including manufacturer of an antiviral, army headquarter, academia and local press, although all are volunteer participants. Its main goal is to prepare against coming large-scale epidemic of influenza as concretely as possible in our own local communities. A group meeting has been held every month or two for lectures, presentation and discussion. Documents and other materials were collected and stocked to supply anyone who wants them as references to learn about past pandemics and the present planning. In addition, materials written in English have been translated into Japanese by the members to make them easily accessible for ordinary Japanese people. Discussion in the meetings includes the priority for vaccination or antiviral drugs among staffs of hospitals and communities, several desktop simulations and ways of local governments to manage health and social crises. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A series of studies were performed to investigate the ability of rapid antigen-detection kits in diagnosis of influenza. Clinical specimens were collected from a total of more than 3000 cases of influenza-like illness who visited out-patient clinics in Sendai and Fukuoka, Japan, during the 2001–2002 and 2002–2003 influenza seasons. Each clinical specimen was examined with a kit and virus isolation, and results were analyzed retrospectively by several points of interest: sensitivity of the kits based on the virus isolation and the sensitivity by type and subtype of influenza, kinds of specimens, the time course of influenza, and variation of sources of the specimens. Thus, the sensitivities of a kit were 83%, 52% and 58% in general for influenza A(H3N2), A(H1N1), and B, respectively, and those of another kit were 76%, 71%, and 62%, respectively, in 2001–2002 influenza season. The sensitivity using nasal swabs was better than that using throat swab, though only 5% up. Specimens tended to be less sensitive when collected shortly after the onset of illness, and the sensitivity seemed quite varied (17–92%) by source of specimens: staff who collect the specimens, and/or by population of the patients. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Antigenicity of all the A(H3) viruses which we isolated from specimens collected in Sendai and Fukuoka, Japan in 2002–2003 influenza season was examined by hemagglutination inhibition test (HI) using the ferret antiserum against A/Panama/2007/99 (H3N2), the vaccine strain for the past three influenza seasons, provided by WHO Influenza Collaborating Center, Japan. All the viruses were isolated in MDCK cell system. From the beginning of the epidemic, we found that many isolated virus strains reacted with the standard antiserum more than 4- to 16-fold less than its homologous titer, in both cities. The number of isolation of such antigenic drifted viruses increased and dominated the isolates in this season. We show here the chronological appearance of such variants in this season. Furthermore, we performed genetic analyses on the HA genes of the isolates along with those of previous two consecutive seasons. Thus it was revealed that the isolates of this season make a clear cluster different from the cluster in the previous seasons, and the variants of 2002–2003 season make a different cluster from those of previous two seasons. Moreover, no difference was found in clusters which could explain the difference between these variants and nonvariants, and among variants isolated in four cities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]