Japan's e-commerce giant Rakuten starts selling COVID-19 testing kits

TOKYO, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc. said on Monday it has started selling COVID-19 testing kits to businesses in Tokyo and four surrounding prefectures.

Rakuten said the testing kits are being sold as a "risk assessment option to those who show no specific symptoms but are concerned about the spread of the virus."

The self-assessment kits have been developed by Genesis Healthcare Co., a leading genetic testing and research company in Tokyo in which Rakuten owns an undisclosed stake.

Rakuten said the kits will be available to companies and organizations in Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Ibaraki prefectures.

The testing kits, Rakuten said, are supposed to be used to determine whether an employee, for example, should self-isolate so as not to potentially spread the pneumonia-carrying virus.

The online retail behemoth said the testing kits are not designed for official medical diagnosis, but by taking a nasal swab, the sample can be assessed at a laboratory in about three days to see if the sample contains the genetic sequences specific to the respiratory disease, COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus.

The kits will will cost 14,900 yen (138 U.S. dollars) per person and the minimum order has been set at 100 kits.

Rakuten plans to offer them in other parts of Japan from May with the move coming amid concerns that the Japanese government has not been conducting as many coronavirus tests as other countries, focusing instead on tracking group infections.

Healthcare officials here have voiced concern that this could mean that asymptomatic patients or those displaying only very mild symptoms of the virus could be unknowingly passing on the deadly virus, while not being included in the health ministry's official figures for those infected with the virus.

Japan is currently struggling with enough personnel, resources and facilities to carry out the vital coronavirus tests, despite the government saying it is expanding its testing capacity.

Some hospitals in Japan, meanwhile, have also been refusing to grant access to those suspected of carrying the virus as they do not have the capacity or resources to treat them while preventing the virus from spreading to other patients.