Health minister Chikara Sakaguchi said Thursday the government will try to reach a quick settlement in two damages suits over Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease contracted from transplants of infected dura mater imported from Germany.

"I decided to accept the opinion of the (Tokyo and Otsu) district courts, which said the government should seek a settlement regardless of its legal responsibility," Sakaguchi told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting.

His remark is believed to indicate the government is considering an offer of relief measures, including financial assistance to all plaintiffs, although the government is being held responsible for cases only after 1987.

Asked if the government will apologize, which the plaintiffs are strongly demanding, Sakaguchi said, "We will have to discuss the possibility of an apology during the negotiation process from now."

The Tokyo and Otsu district courts separately delivered opinions earlier this month holding the government partly responsible and urging a quick settlement.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry told the two courts Thursday of the government's intention to negotiate with the plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs have agreed to start negotiations, ministry officials said. Proceedings began at the Otsu District Court later in the day.

The suits seek a combined 2.9 billion yen in damages and were filed on behalf of 28 CJD patients, 25 of whom have died.

The plaintiffs, mostly relatives of the victims, have accepted the opinions of the two courts and are demanding an apology from the minister as well as relief measures for the surviving CJD patients.

Minoru Hatayama, the chief lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said they partly welcome the government's stance to accept the court recommendation.

"But we should continue our efforts to make the government offer relief measures to all of the victims and their relatives," he said in Tokyo.

Ibuki Yamamura, a 59-year-old plaintiff whose wife, Keiko, died of the disease earlier this month, said he and other plaintiffs still want a government apology.

"Without an official apology from the government, our distress will never go away," he said.

During Thursday's discussions at the Otsu District Court, the plaintiffs called for an apology that acknowledges legal responsibility, as well as concrete steps to prevent similar mishaps from recurring. The government, in response, stuck to the wording of Sakaguchi's statement.

In opinions released last week, the Otsu and Tokyo District courts held the government, B. Braun Melsungen AG, a German medical equipment manufacturer that supplied the dura mater, and Nihon B.S.S., the Japanese importer, responsible.

Although 20 out of the 28 victims received infected dura mater before February 1987, the courts recommended that all receive financial assistance from the government.

On Wednesday, the two companies agreed to pay 200,000 yen a month in medical fees to two of the three surviving CJD patients in a settlement reached at the Tokyo District Court. The patients had sought 300,000 yen a month, according to the lawyers.

The plaintiffs claim B. Braun Melsungen's dura mater products used in the transplants caused the brain-wasting disease.

The opinion issued by the Tokyo District Court censured the then Health and Welfare Ministry for ignoring a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States in 1987 on CJD contracted from transplants of infected human dura mater.

The Otsu District Court said that if the government had taken steps to regulate the use of dura mater, transmission of CJD to the patients could have been prevented to some extent.

The courts also said the two companies could have known as early as 1978 that dura mater could transmit the disease.

The government in 1973 approved the import of dura mater from the German company and dura mater was used in transplants in Japan from 1973 to 1997. The World Health Organization in March 1997 advised against transplanting dry human dura mater, and Japan suspended its use the same year.

The first CJD damages suit was filed with the Otsu District Court in November 1996.

CJD is a fatal brain disorder that causes rapid, progressive dementia and associated neuromuscular problems. It usually leads to death within one to two years.