Lima - Peru's health authorities on Wednesday confirmed the country's first case of swine flu.

The victim was an Argentinian woman who was in Mexico only for a few hours on a layover when travelling from the United States to Argentina, Peru's Health Minister Oscar Ugarte said.

The 27-year-old was hospitalized with high fever, nosebleeds and a cough at a quarantine ward in Callao province near the capital Lima, he said.

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Tokyo - Japan will set up fever clinics across the nation to treat patients with swine flu if the disease reaches Japan, a ministry official said Thursday.

The government's plan to designate some medical facilities as fever clinics was intended to prevent in-hospital spread of flu infections, according to the Health, Welfare and Labour Ministry.

Beijing - China has launched a campaign to educate all schoolchildren in the symptoms and prevention of swine flu, the government said on Thursday.

Schools nationwide should educate children about swine flu as soon as possible to raise awareness and "avoid causing unnecessary panic among teachers and students," the education and health ministries said in a joint notice published on their websites.

The schools should teach children about good hygiene and the avoidance of contact with flu-infected people, the notice said.

Mexico City - The number of confirmed swine flu infections in Mexico climbed from 49 to 91, with eights deaths caused by the new strain, Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said Wednesday night.

The latest figures came shortly after the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva raised the pandemic alert for swine flu by one level to phase 5.

Tokyo - Japanese smokers bent on