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YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Some base exchanges in Japan and South Korea are now allowing customers to buy up to three sanitizer products.

Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores at Yokota Air Base, Japan, and Osan Air Base, South Korea, which had been limiting customers to just one item each, advertised the new limits in Facebook posts Thursday.

Customers can now buy up to three items of sanitizing hand-gel at $6.95 each, spray for $6.95 or disinfectant wipes for $1.45, according to in-store advertising.

AAFES and Navy Exchange Service Command officials didn’t immediately respond Thursday to emailed questions about the limits.

Sanitizer was in short supply after customers rushed to stock up in early March as coronavirus cases surged. Shortages that month forced the exchange at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, in southwestern Japan, to stock Japanese hand sanitizer that sold for $18.99 a bottle.

Exchange stores boosted supply to meet demand. The Navy Exchange, for example, acquired an additional 24,000 masks and more than 70,000 units of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes by mid-March.

On Thursday, the Navy Exchange at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, was still limiting customers to a single item for one brand of sanitizer and two items for another.

Navy civilian worker Leonard Davis, 51, and daughters Sia, 19, and Ania, 17, were buying sanitizer at the Yokota exchange Thursday. The family split their purchase of two bottles between them because they unaware of the new three-item limit, Davis added.

They’ve been going through quite a lot of product, he said.

“I’ve been sanitizing at least every hour, but I don’t want to make my hands too dry,” he said.

robson.seth@stripes.com Twitter: @SethRobson1

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