The COVID-19 pandemic has actually added another layer of complexity to the flu season ahead of schedule. COVID and the flu share many similar signs and symptoms, which certainly makes diagnostic screening even more important this flu season.
What is a flu swab test?
Flu is the abbreviation of Influenza. This disease is not unfamiliar to us. It is an acute respiratory infection caused by influenza virus.
Influenza is very contagious and spreads very quickly. Once you have flu symptoms, you must go to the hospital for relevant examinations in time to determine the type of flu before symptomatic treatment.
Every year when the seasons change, the virus will also increase due to changes in temperature. This period is also the time when we are most prone to getting sick.
Among them, influenza is a very common epidemic infectious disease. Influenza is familiar to most people, but not very well known to a few people.
Getting a quick, accurate diagnosis is of course critical to driving treatment decisions.
Influenza testing can be done with blood tests, nasopharyngeal swabs, etc.
How to Test for Flu with a Swab.
Which Swab Test is More Accurate?
Discovering the right flu test is critical to ensuring accurate results. Using high-quality items—including appropriate swabs, shipping media, and testing devices—can help to properly identify influenza and reduce the potential spread of infection. Influenza testing needs to detect the influenza virus.
After infection with influenza, the influenza virus usually invades the nasopharynx first, which can be detected by a nasopharyngeal swab.
Influenza virus can also enter the blood and can be detected by a blood test. Influenza is a relatively serious respiratory infectious disease.
After the infection, the systemic symptoms are more obvious, such as high fever, general weakness, and sore limbs.
The recovery of the disease is also relatively slow, and it takes about half a month.
Each of the influenza tests listed above can be performed using a nasopharyngeal (NP) swab, throat swab, NP swab, nasal or endotracheal aspirate, or saliva test.
Covid Test Throat Swab
To perform an NP flu swab test, follow these steps:
Choose a flocked swab with excellent absorption and elution, such as CellMedical’s Nasopharyngeal Swab CM-96000N 6″ Sterile Flocked Swab with Breakpoint 90mm.
With the patient’s head tilted back, slowly insert the flocked swab into the nasal cavity.
Place the swab directly into the nostril directly back (not up) and at the level of the nasopharynx to the distance determined on the swab handle.
Rotate the swab approximately 3 to 5 times and hold in place for 5 to 10 seconds to obtain a sample.
Remove the sampling swab and insert into a virus sampling tube containing 1 to 3 ml of virus transport medium.
Break the flocked swab along the breakpoint.
Label the vial with the appropriate customer information.
How long does a flu swab test take?
Throat swab test belongs to a class of medical test methods. A medical sampling swab is used to take a small number of secretions from the pharynx of the human body, inoculate it in a special petri dish, and then put it into a temperature control device for cultivation. Throat swab test can understand the patient’s condition, oral mucosa and throat infection. As for how long the results will take, depending on the number of people tested, some hours, some a day, some a week.
How accurate is the flu swab test?
The flu nasopharyngeal swab test is more accurate when the virus load is sufficient.
This is used to determine whether the human body has the flu.
But if the test comes back positive, that would require sampling and testing of those who came into contact with the patient.
It can prevent the spread of influenza, and it is necessary for suspected patients to be properly isolated, placed separately, and tested.
Nasopharyngeal swabs are commonly used clinically to detect viruses.
That is, take a sampling flocked swab and gently wipe the patient’s nasopharynx, and then take samples for testing.