Most of the infections of A(H1N1) were reported among high school and college students in the western cities of Kobe and Osaka, where authorities ordered more than 1,000 schools and kindergartens to stay shut on Monday.

The island nation until Friday thought it had kept the virus at bay, after detecting four people who tested positive when they flew in from North America and immediately quarantining them along with about 50 fellow passengers.

But since the government Saturday confirmed the first domestic case, a 17-year-old male Kobe student who had not been overseas, the number of confirmed infections has risen quickly in the two urban areas.

Masato Tashiro, the chief flu researcher at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, said several hundred people in Japan may already be infected, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Tashiro was speaking from Geneva, where the World Health Organization (WHO) annual assembly will begin on Monday, with fears about the global outbreak of swine flu expected to dominate discussions.

Nearly 8,500 people in three dozen countries have been infected with A(H1N1), according to the latest WHO figures. Cases confirmed in Turkey, India and Chile at the weekend have not been included in the tally.

More than 70 people have died from the virus -- all of them in the Americas and nearly all of them in Mexico, where the new strain of swine flu was first detected late last month.

Ahead of Monday's WHO meeting, world governments have failed to reach a final deal on the sharing of virus research material and vaccines in case of a global flu pandemic.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said his country had given the WHO a sample of the virus on Saturday, along with statistical and clinical data on the evolution of the strain there.

Authorities in Mexico say they are on the path to containing the outbreak. The health ministry said in a statement that if the virus "is dealt with on time, usually it is curable."

Fourteen new cases of swine flu were confirmed on Sunday in Britain, pushing the total number of cases of the virus in the country over 100.

"Fourteen further patients under investigation in England have today been confirmed with swine flu bringing the current total number of confirmed UK cases to 101," said a statement from the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

In the US meanwhile, six New York schools were to remain shuttered for most of this week, as officials tried to slow the spread of the fast-moving virus among the city's students.

Chile confirmed its first case of the disease, and Hong Kong officials Sunday said they had recorded the third case of swine flu.

The 23-year-old patient was a mainland Chinese university student who boarded a flight operated by Cathay Pacific and American Airlines in New York on Friday and arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday evening.

In Japan, no link has so far been found between the students in Osaka and Kobe who tested positive, officials said.

Prime Minister Taro Aso urged the public to remain calm while Shigeru Omi, head of the government's special swine flu task force, said: "We believe that the infection is beginning to spread in the region."

Meanwhile a YouTube video clip showing pigs being culled in Egypt as part of swine flu measures has caused outrage at the apparent barbarity of the slaughter.

The clip posted by independent newspaper Al-Masri Al-Yom includes gory images of pigs being beaten with iron bars, piglets being stabbed and animals being kicked alive into bulldozer buckets.

Although no case of swine flu has yet been detected on its territory, Egypt is the only country in the world to have decided to kill all its pigs, estimated at around 250,000 before the cull began.

earlier related report
Japan acts over fresh swine flu cases, world figures soar
Officials began closing schools and cancelling public events in the Japanese city of Kobe Saturday, after eight high school students tested positive for swine flu and scores more reported feeling ill.

The eight confirmed cases were students at a high school in the western city of Kobe, and another nine school students were considered suspected cases in nearby Osaka city, local officials said.

And as fears rose in Japan that the virus would spread across the country, World Health Organization officials said they would be investigating the latest outbreak.

Meanwhile a third confirmed swine flu case on the Chinese mainland was reported in Beijing late Saturday, state media quoted the Ministry of Health as saying.

The latest WHO tally as of 0700 GMT showed the number of confirmed cases had soared beyond 8,000, as India and Turkey also reported their first infections.

The official Chinese Xinhua news agency said the country's newly confirmed case involved an 18-year-old woman who had previously been reported as a suspected case by the Beijing Municipal Government.

Xinhua said the student was a Beijing native who "studies in a university in the New York State of the United States."

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso called for calm after the country's first case of a domestic infection -- someone who had not picked up the virus from abroad -- was confirmed in a 17-year-old boy.

"The government will carry out thorough inspections on the patients and on the people close to them," said Aso. "We will take action to stop the infection from spreading."

But former World Health Organization senior official Shigeru Omi, now head of the government's special swine flu task force, warned that "we believe that the infection is beginning to spread in the region".

And Reiko Hamuro, a 42-year-old transport company employee in Kobe, said: "All of a sudden, people started wearing masks today. It's scary because the cases came without any warning signs."

Officials in Kobe announced the temporary closure of at least 75 schools and kindergartens. They also cancelled festivals and other public events in some districts.

And WHO spokesman Dick Thomson told AFP in Geneva: "It is something we are looking at but we need to have an investigation."

Japan confirmed its first cases of the influenza A(H1N1) virus contracted overseas on May 9: a school teacher and three students who flew to Tokyo from Canada via Detroit. It immediately quarantined them and their fellow passengers.

The latest tally from the WHO showed that worldwide, the number of people killed by swine flu had risen to 72, up from 65 on Friday: six more in Mexico and one in the United States.

Over the past week the number of people infected by the virus has risen sharply, going up by around 1,000 a day since Monday to reach 8,451 on Saturday.

The United States, followed by Mexico, where the epidemic began some three weeks ago, have recorded the highest number of cases. Two new countries, Ecuador and Peru, have been added to the WHO's official list.

India confirmed its first swine flu case after a 23-year-old man who had flown to Hyderabad from New York tested positive for the virus.

He was quarantined on his return on Wednesday, when he was found to have a fever, but was already from symptoms of the virus, said a health ministry statement.

The patient had changed planes in Dubai and all passengers who had flown on the same plane to India were being contacted, the statement added.

For the moment, the WHO is not recommending travel restrictions to stop the spread of the infection, except to advise anyone who falls ill to delay travel.

Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag said their first case of swine flu had been detected in blood tests carried out on an Iraqi-born US national.

As he arrived at Istanbul airport, thermal cameras picked up the fact he was running a high fever.

Local news channels NTV and CNN-Turk later reported that tests on the man's wife confirmed that she had also contracted the virus.

Canadian scientists said they had "mapped the full genetic sequence of the virus" found in swine there, which would "help scientists around the world better understand the virus and its affects on animals."

The flu virus detected in pigs at a farm in Alberta was "the same as the virus causing illness in humans around the world," said a statement from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Saturday.

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