Tokyo - The Japanese government has found the nation's first case of Tamiflu-resistance in a patient infected with the new strain of influenza A virus, media reports said Friday. A Japanese woman in her 40s was infected with H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, which resisted Tamiflu, but she recovered after being treated with another anti-flu drug, Relenza, the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry said.
The case "is considered to pose no public health threat, given no infections have been confirmed around her," but the genetic mutation case was the first to be detected in the world, a ministry official was quoted as saying by Kyodo News Agency.
Because the virus was dead and the patient recovered, local government officials of western Osaka prefecture didn't report it until July 1, more than a month after the local government confirmed the genetic mutation.
A similar case was reported in Denmark in late June, which was reported on June 29.
The number of H1N1 virus infections rose to more than 1,500 in Japan, but no life-threatening cases have been reported.
