About 600,000 more Quebecers will be able to get a rapid test kit in pharmacies between Thursday and the beginning of next week.
Posted at 5:10 p.m.
Updated at 20:21
After distributing about three million rapid tests on Tuesday, pharmacies in Quebec are starting to receive a new shipment of three million rapid tests earlier than expected. This shipment of 600,000 kits of five rapid tests will be gradually available in pharmacies from Thursday until early next week.
These new rapid tests are likely to go quickly to pharmacies, as many Quebecers have not been able to obtain their rapid test kits since the start of distribution on December 19, due to the lack of rapid tests and the high demand for these. tests since the intensification of the Omicron variant.
Initially, this new shipment of three million tests was to arrive in pharmacies only at the beginning of next week. It was delivered a few days earlier and will be gradually available in pharmacies between Thursday and the beginning of next week.
The start of test availability – Thursday or Friday – will vary by region. In practice, part of the 600,000 kits will go to Quebecers already on a waiting list at their pharmacy.
“It’s better not to line up at the pharmacy in the morning – especially these days with the temperature – and instead check the pharmacy websites. Put yourself on a waiting list if possible at your pharmacy. And put yourself on one waiting list, not eight. Today, 20 of my 100 patients entitled to a test kit had already received one at another pharmacy, ”says Benoit Morin, president of the Quebec Association of Owner Pharmacists.
“This is a very positive development which brings the total of tests received in recent weeks to 10.5 million. These new tests should be available in certain pharmacies from tomorrow and over the next few days at the scale of the more than 1900 pharmacies participating in the distribution ”, says Hugues Mousseau, general manager of the Quebec Association of Pharmaceutical Distributors. .
Each Quebecer aged 14 and over can receive a free kit of five tests per month. For the moment, there is a lack of rapid tests so that every Quebecer aged 14 and over has his kit of five rapid tests.
Since December 19, pharmacies in Quebec have distributed 10.5 million rapid tests (including the new shipment of three million tests available from Thursday to Monday) to the general public, or 2.1 million kits of five rapid tests.
These rapid tests are distributed by the federal government to the provinces, which then decide how to distribute them. For the general public, the Quebec government has chosen to distribute them in pharmacies.