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TOKYO (Reuters) – Tokyo has asked Beijing to stop performing anal swab tests for COVID-19 on Japanese citizens as the procedure causes psychological pain, a government spokesman said on Monday.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said the government has not received a response that Beijing would change the testing procedure, so Japan would continue to ask China to alter the way the tests are conducted.
“Some Japanese informed our embassy in China that they underwent anal swab tests, which caused them great psychological pain,” Kato told a news conference.
It was not known how many Japanese citizens received such tests for the coronavirus, he said.
Some Chinese cities are using samples taken from the anus to screen for potential COVID-19 infections as China intensifies screening tests to ensure no potential carriers of the new coronavirus are lost.
China’s Foreign Ministry denied last month that U.S. diplomats in the country were required to undergo anal swab tests for COVID-19, following media reports that some had complained. of the procedure.
(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko and Angus MacSwan)
