Japan will raise the caps on medical expenses borne by patients as part of changes in its high-cost medical care benefit system from August that are designed to curb ballooning national medical costs. The ceilings on monthly out-of-pocket medical expenses will be raised next month and in August 2027. The total margin of increases will reach 4 pct to 38 pct, varying depending on the annual income.
Japan’s health ministry has ordered Kissei Pharmaceutical Co. to report on 20 deaths among users of Tavneos, a vasculitis drug marketed by the company in Japan, health minister Kenichiro Ueno said Friday.
The order was issued on June 19, giving the company, based in the central Japan city of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, until July 21 to submit a report. “We’ll continue to consider our response based on a report from the company and future developments in the United States, where the drug was developed,” Ueno said at a press conference.
Confusion and concern are spreading among families of children with developmental disabilities and medical professionals over the revision to Japan’s medical fee schedule that took effect on June 1.
The Japanese health ministry is set to begin providing about 470 million yen in aid this fiscal year to medical institutions that conduct a large number of organ transplants from brain-dead patients.
The drug is estimated to have been administered to 12,000 to 13,000 patients in Japan. All 20 dead patients developed liver dysfunction, and 210 similar side effect reports have been made, including suspected cases.
Kissei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. announced that for its vasculitis treatment drug “Tavneos” (generic name: avacopan), 20 deaths have been reported in Japan among patients who took the medication. This figure includes cases where a causal relationship is unclear. On the 15th, the company called on healthcare professionals to refrain from administering the drug to new patients.
About 10 passengers were taken to hospital after an emergency report of something being sprayed in a train car on the Tokaido Line section of the Ueno-Tokyo Line of East Japan Railway Co. at about 4:35 p.m. on Sunday 10th May.
The risk of hantavirus spreading in Japan through person-to-person transmission is low, even if infected passengers from a cruise ship linked to a recent outbreak enter the country, the health ministry said Wednesday. The ministry called on the public to remain calm, after three people died in a suspected hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean. A Japanese national is among passengers on the ship.
Japan’s health minister Kenichiro Ueno said Friday he will call for nationwide vaccination to prevent measles. According to the health chief, 299 measles cases were reported between Jan. 1 and April 12, already exceeding the total figure for 2025. Cluster infections were observed at schools and others.
In a retrial at the Fukuoka District Court on the 20th, Presiding Judge Shinichi Suzushima sentenced a 44-year-old male radiological technologist to one year and six months in prison, suspended for three years.The man had been charged with quasi-forcible indecency for touching the chest of a female student with intellectual disabilities during a 2018 medical check-up at a high school in Fukuoka Prefecture. Judge Suzushima upheld the credibility of the student’s testimony, describing the act as a “despicable crime that exploited his professional position.”
Barrier Free Japan