Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted the state of emergency from large parts of the country yesterday, but said it will remain in effect in Tokyo until the outbreak of the Coronavirus is contained.
Abe announced the lifting of the state of emergency on 39 of 47 Japanese provinces, but he left it in force in the capital and in Osaka, the country's second largest urban center, in an effort to reduce economic damage, while efforts to stop the spread of the virus continued.
Abe said he would start work on a second additional budget, and that the government would take more measures in the framework of economic stimulus, to alleviate the financing difficulties facing companies if necessary.
"While we control the spread of the virus as much as possible by acting on the assumption that the virus is present all around us, we will return to work and normal daily life," he told a news conference.
The country, which has a population of 126 million, has counted 16,000 cases of "Covid-19" on its soil since the start of the health crisis, including 687 deaths.
On the other hand, a Japanese Ministry of Health official said that his country started to use the American drug Gilead Sciences, a remediffer in the treatment of patients with severe symptoms of Covid-19, after days of giving the drug urgent approval in the framework of efforts to curb the spread of a virus. Sk.
The ministry official, Yasuyuki Sahara, added in an email yesterday that the drug has been distributed to Japan's hospitals since May 11, where it is used to treat patients in intensive care units or those who use respirators.
He said that the amount of the drug Remedisfer that his country had received from the pharmaceutical company was not part of the information disclosed, and that global supplies were "very limited".
Gilead, California-based, has pledged to donate the first half-and-a-half million doses of Remsdivir.
On May 7, Japan agreed to Remisevir, making it the first drug approved in the country to treat Covid-19 disease.