Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe entered a hospital on Monday for a medical check-up, a government source said, after a top official voiced concern the prime minister was suffering from fatigue because of his workload during the coronavirus pandemic.
Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, plans to return home later on Monday after the examination at Tokyo’s Keio University Hospital, the source familiar with the situation told Reuters.
The reason for the check-up was not immediately clear. Kyodo News said it was a regular check-up, citing people near to the prime minister, while Nippon TV quoted government sources as saying it was not a worrying situation.
Abe gets a regular check-up twice a year, with his most recent on June 13, said Kyodo, adding that Monday’s visit was a follow-up to the June check-up, citing a hospital source.
The news follows weekend comments by Akira Amari, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s tax panel, that Abe, 65, could be suffering from fatigue because of his continuous work over the response to the virus.
“I want him to take a break,” Amari told a Fuji TV news program on Sunday.
“He has a strong sense of responsibility and feels it’s wrong to take a break,” said Amari in a statement.
Abe, in office since 2012 in his second stint as prime minister, resigned from his first stint in 2007 because of struggles with ulcerative colitis, which he now keeps under control with medication that was not previously available.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo: Xinhua
