A large-scale survey conducted over a 10-year period has found a 26 percent rise in the incidence of shingles caused by the same virus responsible for chicken pox.
The study, considered unprecedented in scale and carried out in Miyazaki Prefecture, involved 46 medical institutions, including hospitals run by dermatologists, universities and general hospitals.
Members of the prefecture's dermatologist association, including Nozomu Toyama, director of Toyama dermatology clinic, and Kimiyasu Shiraki, professor of virology at the University of Toyama, took part in the survey, which started in 1997 and lasted until 2006.