“We had many enquiries from people on what to do after they found no masks in the stores,” said Hiroyuki Kobayashi, a disaster management official with the city’s fire brigade.

The instructions, first posted last week, have since been used by the websites of other cities, Kobayashi told AFP by telephone.

A private hospital in the central prefecture of Niigata has, meanwhile, proposed a mask made from kitchen paper, while one blogger showed how to make a mask from textile and fine wire and one made with coffee filters.

The latest edition of Aera weekly, published by the Asahi Shimbun, carried an article in which a reporter tried on various types of homemade masks.

The coffee-filter mask “looks like Donald Duck” but brought an unexpected “sense of security,” the article said.

Another blogger came up with a sanitary napkin version, pointing out that it was less difficult to breathe through than expected.

Japan has confirmed 342 cases of A (H1N1), according to the health ministry.

There have been no fatalities in Japan and the government has said the spread of infections appears to be easing.

Nonetheless, there has been a shortage of masks at drugstores in the hygiene-conscious nation where face masks have been part of everyday streetwear for decades.

Source: AFP