Sugahara: Of all the infectious diseases, some are very urgent like Hansen’s disease, and some damage you gradually for your entire life on the other hand. Why can’t they separate them in isolation?
Minami: About Hansen’s disease, the isolation law has been abolished since it has been found out that Hansen’s disease has one of the slightest infectivity of all the infectious diseases and is curable. As the disease itself is an acute disease, there is no need to isolate the patients. Nevertheless, if you do not consent to the hospitalization, you will be forced to be hospitalized anyway in the name of an “extremely exceptional measure.” The law does not use the term “forced hospitalization,” but there is a law that guarantees the right of the governor of the prefecture to make the patient under hospitalization. For such a case, the law incorporates human rights policies, like keeping the patient able to make contact with the outer world, or discussing in the third-party conference if the patient really needs to continue being hospitalized.
Sugahara: Into which infectious disease Type would the highly pathogenic bird flu be classified? Regular Bird flu is in Type IV, isn’t it? Would the new-type be classified into a higher category?
Minami: When a new-type human-to-human flu appears, it would be classified into the Designated Infectious Disease.
Sugahara: Only Designated?
Minami: Since it takes a while to determine by the law, a new infectious disease would be put into the Designated Infectious Disease category as soon as it is discovered. You never know how dangerous it is until it actually breaks out, so if the disease is revealed to be as dangerous as SARS, it would be treated with the same attitude as the infectious disease- Type I.
Sugahara: Suppose 80% of all the population in some country fall down one after another, would Japan classify the disease directly into Type I or Type II?
Minami: If they find out that the new disease can be transmitted also to hospital workers, and that the virus can be passed from human to human, they designate the disease as a Designated Disease first, and then, if the disease seems to be as dangerous as SARS, they would classify it into Type I.
Sugahara: The infection source of SARS used to be believed to be Masked Musang. When did they find it to be bats?
Minami: The Southern part of China has a culture to eat Masked Musang. So when scientists checked up Masked Musang, they found infection in Masked Musang. This is why Masked-Musang theory spread. But, many scientists were insisting that Masked Musang were also passed SARS from another real natural reservoir. Although I have not read the subsequent detailed reports, it was reported in 2005 that bats were found out to be the natural reservoir of SARS.
