Research Program on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases 

Development of optimal medical care network for the diagnosis and treatment of tropical and parasitic diseases in Japan

Research Representative Doctor: Professor, Haruhiko Maruyama (National University Corporation University of Miyazaki)

As of April 2015, the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development has been the contractor of the research group.

In 1980, this research group was established to create optimal medical care networks for rare imported and domestic parasitic diseases in Japan. The research group has been directly and indirectly involved in the approval and extension of 13 medications for tropical and parasitic/protozoan diseases (Table 1).

In Japan, patients with tropical diseases overseas and after returning to their home countries are sometimes noted. Some medications used to treat tropical diseases are not available in Japan because the number of such cases is extremely low to allow pharmaceutical companies to supply them on a commercial basis.

In 1980, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) led the discussion of this problem, and the research group was established to address it.

We are supplying domestically unapproved drugs (Table 2) for severe malaria, toxoplasmosis (without HIV infection), and fascioliasis in the clinical research framework. 

Table 1. Medications that were once approved in Japan and handled by the research group.