A German medical equipment maker and its Japanese importer agreed Wednesday to pay 200,000 yen a month in medical fees to two Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease patients, the patients' lawyers said.
B. Braun Melsungen AG of Germany and importer Nihon B.S.S. reached the settlement with the patients at the Tokyo District Court, where the plaintiffs filed a preliminary suit demanding 300,000 yen a month for each of them, according to the lawyers.
A total of 28 CJD patients, including the two, have filed separate damages suits at the Tokyo and Otsu district courts, saying B. Braun's dura mater products that they received in surgery transplants caused the brain-wasting disease.
Only three of the 28 plaintiffs are alive.
One of the lawyers representing the two patients said Wednesday's settlement would not directly affect the damages suits, but the accord means that the companies have virtually admitted their responsibility.
The preliminary litigation was filed by Keiko Yamamura, a patient in Chiba Prefecture who died Nov. 5, and an 18-year-old male patient in Hokkaido.
The companies said they agreed to pay the money from a humanitarian perspective, setting aside the issue of responsibility.
The firms will pay the money through March, when the two courts plan to hand down their rulings.
For Yamamura, the companies will pay the money for the two months from when she filed the case in September to when she died.
The two courts said last week that the government and the two companies were responsible for the spread of the disease, urging the plaintiffs and defendants to reach a settlement as early as possible.
CJD is a fatal brain disorder that causes rapid, progressive dementia and associated neuromuscular problems. It is caused by a similar protein linked to mad cow disease and usually leads to death within one to two years.