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Hiroshima University’s second medical team enters Fukushima to provide treatment to those affected by radiation

by Masaya Yamauchi, Staff Writer

On the evening of March 16, the second medical team that has been trained to handle emergency radiation exposure and was dispatched from Hiroshima University in response to the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant arrived at the Emergency Radiation Exposure Coordination Center in the city of Fukushima. The troubled nuclear plant is run by the Tokyo Electric Power Company and was damaged in the earthquake and tsunami that rocked eastern Japan on March 11.

The second team, led by Keiichiro Mihara, assistant professor of the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Hiroshima University Hospital, consists of seven members, including a doctor, a nurse, and a radiological technician. They joined the members of the previously-dispatched team, which had entered the area prior to the second team. 

The first team reached the area on March 12. They have measured the radiation levels of about 300 local residents and others who evacuated the area within a radius of 20 kilometers from the nuclear plant. Members of the first team also attended workers, among others, who were exposed to radiation and flown to the Fukushima Medical University and other locations by helicopter, along with members of a team from Nagasaki University.

Yoshio Hosoi, professor at the Research Center for Radiation Casualty Medicine of the Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, said, “The conditions of the crisis are growing more serious. We will do our utmost so that patients can be treated smoothly at Hiroshima University Hospital.”

(Originally published on March 17, 2011)

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