Japanese Tourist Hospitalised in Abakan Diagnosed as Suffering From "A Simple Cold"

A Japanese tourist hospitalised in Abakan, Siberia, the other day with symptoms that looked like atypical pneumonia had been diagnosed as suffering from "a simple cold," a source in the Russian State Sanitary Inspection told RIA Novosti.

The Japanese, whose name wasn't released, is feeling satisfactory and has no fever, said the Sanitary Inspection's press secretary.

In an interview conducted with Russia's Pervy Kanal TV channel on Monday, the country's chief sanitary inspector Gennady Onishchenko explained that the Japanese had been suspected of suffering from atypical pneumonia because he was a native of Southeastern Asia and had been communicating with a group of Chinese tourists on the train. "If it weren't for these, how shall I put it, epidemiological facts, we would not have suspected" this disease, Onishchenko said.

He also reported that sanitary inspectors had conducted a medical check of the team that drove the train in which the patient had met with the Chinese. "They were all healthy," he stated.

In the meantime, doctors took a blood sample from the Japanese to test it for the virus. "At least a week" is needed until they pronounce the final diagnosis, reported the chief sanitary inspector.

The Japanese tourist was hospitalised in Abakan on Monday with symptoms that resembled those of atypical pneumonia. He had been flying from Moscow to Vladivostok and sought medical help during a stopover in the capital of Khakassia. The tourist, a painter from Niigata, told doctors that he had been on the same train with a group of Chinese tourists. He was taken ill in Moscow, he said, which accounted for the fact that he decided to return by plane.