The Japanese government said Friday that it will deny entry of foreign tourists who have failed to pay medical expenses in the country in the past. The government also said that medium- and long-term foreign residents who have failed to pay national health insurance or pension premiums in Japan will not be allowed to renew their period of stay or change their status of residence.
Some 80 pct of needy pregnant and nursing women in Japan are struggling to secure funds to cover living expenses, according to a survey conducted by Save the Children Japan. By employment status, 49.2 pct were jobless, and 24.8 pct were part-timers. Asked about their financial conditions, 47.6 pct said they were barely making ends meet. Meanwhile, a majority stated that they were short of money, with 29.9 pct saying they are dipping into savings and 21.7 pct saying they are relying on borrowings.
Eating fast without chewing much would result in obesity among elementary school students, a Japanese research team has found.
It has already been known that fast-eating adults with poor chewing performance are prone to obesity. But little known was a relation between eating habits and masticatory performance among children.
Japan’s parliament on Wednesday enacted a bill that will allow people to pick up over-the-counter drugs at convenience stores and other outlets without pharmacists. The bill to revise the pharmaceuticals and medical devices law was approved at a plenary meeting of the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, following its passage through the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, last month. The revised law will require consumers to listen to explanations from pharmacists online before purchases. It will take effect by around spring 2027. The government expects the new system to be used also in areas with few pharmacies, such as remote islands and mountainous areas.
Japan’s Emperor Emeritus Akihito has been diagnosed with silent myocardial ischemia, a condition of an asymptomatic patient whose blood flow from the coronary arteries to the heart muscle is reduced due to excessive exercise, the Imperial Household Agency said Saturday.
As the number of people struggling with insomnia and insufficient sleep increases, the Japanese Society of Sleep Research has submitted a formal request to the government to add “Sleep Disorders” to the names of medical departments. They envision combining this term with existing department names, such as “Sleep Disorder Internal Medicine,” and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is now considering the proposal.
People suffering from motion sickness may be able to prevent their symptoms from developing just by listening to a minute of special sound, a Japanese research team said. The research found a sound at 100 hertz stimulates the inner ear and helps to reduce motion sickness by improving balance, the team said, while current preventive measures are largely limited to taking medicines.
The National Federation of Health Insurance Societies, or Kenporen, said Wednesday that the average premium rate at corporate health insurance societies in Japan is expected to hit a record high of 9.34 pct in fiscal 2025. The rate is projected to rise 0.03 percentage point from the previous year ended in March, affected by higher contributions to the medical care services for the elderly, according to the group of health insurance societies for employees of large corporations and their families.
The number of new cases of acute respiratory infection, or ARI, reported at some 3,000 designated medical institutions across Japan was 181,270 in the week through April 13, a national institute said Tuesday. According to the Japan Institute for Health Security, the number of ARI patients per medical institution in the reporting week stood at 49.39. By prefecture, Tochigi logged the highest figure, at 94.13, and Kochi posted the lowest figure, at 27.37. The number of ARI patients will be released every Tuesday, and the overview of the ARI situation in Japan will be updated every Friday.
Japan’s health ministry has started monitoring acute respiratory infections, including cold symptoms, under the infectious diseases control law to detect unknown illnesses promptly. The measure, based on the lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic, allows the ministry to keep an eye on a wide range of infectious diseases to spot unknown illnesses.
Barrier Free Japan