By Angela Beswick
Sixty passengers arriving at Auckland International Airport this morning have reported flu-like symptoms, Air New Zealand has confirmed.
Flight NZ90 from Tokyo landed around 9:20 this morning and passengers on board could be seen wearing face masks.
The Auckland Regional Public Health Service has been informed and a medical officer of health is facilitating at the airport.
The plane, a Boeing 777-200, has 274 passengers on board.
Passengers that have disembarked have been separated into two rooms; rows 47 forward in one, and rows 52 and back in another.
"This is not just precautionary, there is major concern," an ambulance spokeswoman told NZ Newswire.
"Things are still pretty up in the air at the moment."
However, Health Minister Tony Ryall has been briefed on the situation and says it is unlikely passengers have contracted anything worse than seasonal flu.
“It is Japan’s flu season, and there are no reports of new strains of flu there,” he said.
Unconfirmed reports suggested some of the passengers may be teenage school children.
Earlier this morning, a quarantine area was set up on the aircraft and no one was allowed to get off. Passengers may have been tested on the plane.
Ambulances have gathered in the domestic area of the airport and Aviation Security set up two quarantine areas at the airport while they looked for ways to safely remove the passengers from the plane.
The age and nationalities of the passengers on flight NZ90 has yet to be established.
Japan is currently experiencing a major flu epidemic - as at February 5 more than 2.1 million people were reported to have had the flu.
That number had jumped by 380,000 cases on the previous week.
Most of those infected were found to have the A strain of the virus, known in Japan as the "Hong Kong" strain.
3 News