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Late last week the Japan Health Ministry announced their intention to ask for nearly 60 billion yen ($534 million US dollars) for pandemic funding in next year's budget.
Today we learn that at least part of that funding (2 Billion yen) would go towards increasing the number of ventilators (or `respirators', as this article calls them) in medical districts around that nation.
Two billion yen would translate to roughly $5,000 per machine.
Of course, it isn't enough to have the ventilators. Patients on assisted ventilation required highly trained respiratory therapists to monitor and adjust their life support systems.
How they plan to deal with those needs isn't addressed in this article.
Health ministry to introduce 3,600 respirators for new flu pandemic
Wednesday 27th August, 07:31 AM JST
TOKYO —
The health ministry has decided to introduce about 3,600 respirators at medical institutions across Japan to prepare for the possibility of a new influenza pandemic, ministry officials said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare plans to make budgetary request of about 2 billion yen in fiscal 2009 for the respirators, the officials said. Each of the nearly 360 medical districts in Japan would be given 10 respirators.
The ministry is studying how many existing respirators owned by Japanese hospitals can be used in the event that a new flu pandemic breaks out. Many people who have contracted the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has been spreading in Asia and is feared to mutate into a new flu, have had respiratory problems, making respirators essential in treating them.
