TOKYO: COVID-19 antigen test kits are increasingly in short supply in Japan, reflecting soaring demand amid a resurgence in novel coronavirus cases nationwide.

The shortage of antigen test kits, which enable users to know the results soon, is expected to continue for a while partly because the health ministry has called on wholesalers to supply them to medical institutions on a priority basis.

“We started to run out of antigen test kits around last week,” said a public relations official at drugstore chain Sundrug Co., based in Fuchu, Tokyo.

“We now have no choice but to patiently wait for the arrival of products,” said a spokesperson at another drugstore operator.

A 30-year-old male worker at a drugstore near Shinbashi Station of East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, in Tokyo said, “We don’t know when the next shipment will arrive.”

An employee at another drugstore said that antigen test kits sell out “in an hour or two” after shelves are filled.

A 59-year-old corporate employee from Ota Ward in Tokyo purchased two test kits on her way to work. “I bought these to prepare for self-quarantining without visiting a doctor (in case I test positive for the coronavirus),” she said.

Meanwhile, people are flocking to private-sector COVID-19 test sites.

“I came here just in case on my way to school,” said a 20-year-old third-year student at a university who visited a test site near JR East’s Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo’s Toshima Ward. “I now want to know if I’m infected,” she said.

The site has been visited by about 200 people every day since last Monday, according to the company operating the facility.

The facility previously attracted many elderly people who wanted to know the amount of antibodies they have after receiving COVID-19 vaccine shots.

“Many young people with jobs visit this site now,” a public relations official at the company said, noting, “In the current sixth wave of infections, people seem to be interested in whether they have the virus now, rather than the level of effectiveness of vaccines.”

JIJI Press