Viral Transport Medium With Swab

The COVID-19 outbreak is expected to have a significant impact on the tedious market for swabs and virus transport media owing to the increasing patient demand for infection diagnosis.

Flocked Swab and viral transport media are expected to grow due to intensive testing of COVID-19 in research institutions and laboratories.

Rising research and development activities to produce COVID-19 vaccines are expected to drive market growth during the pandemic.

The rising number of COVID-19 cases in the global population is expected to drive market growth.

The need to develop vaccines and early diagnostics to treat infections is expected to boost the market growth.

Manufacturing of Viral Transport Medium

Virus sampling tubes are medical device products. The virus sampling tube consists of a sampling flocking swab, virus transport medium and outer packaging. Since there is no unified national standard or industry standard, the products of various manufacturers vary greatly.

CellMedical manufactures viral transport media (VTM) following WHO and CDC recommendations, with or without swabs.

Flocked swab+tube with Viral transport medium

1. Sampling swab:

Virus sample collection flocked swab

The specimen collection swab directly contacts the sampling site, and the material of the sampling head is closely related to the subsequent detection.

　　Synthetic fibres such as PE synthetic fibers, polyester fibres, polypropylene fibers, and rayon fibres should be used for the manufacture of sampling swab tips.

　　(1) Natural fibers such as cotton are not recommended

　　Because the fiber of cotton has strong adsorption of protein, it is not easy to be eluted into the subsequent preservation solution;

　　(2) Nylon fibers are also not recommended

　　Because nylon fibers (similar to toothbrush heads) have poor water absorption, the sampling volume is insufficient and the detection rate is affected.

　(3) Do not use calcium alginate sponges or wooden stick swabs (including bamboo sticks) for the head of the sampling swab.

　　Because the broken wooden sticks or bamboo sticks containing calcium alginate and wooden components will also adsorb proteins after being soaked in the preservation solution, and even have an inhibitory effect on the subsequent PCR reaction.

Flocked swabs manufacturers

Features of CellMedical Flocked Swabs:

1. Has extraordinary adsorption energy.

2. It has a release rate of more than 95% for the collected specimens, thus ensuring a high degree of reliability of the results;

3. There is a unique breakable design on the plastic rod, which is convenient for specimen transportation;

4. Sterilized by ethylene oxide or irradiation, individually packaged;

Nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs. learn more

2. Virus preservation solution (virus transport medium): There are mainly two kinds of virus preservation solutions widely used in the market, one is a virus maintenance solution improved based on the transport medium, and the other is an improved nucleic acid extraction lysate. Preservation solution.

3. Virus sampling tube: The material of the storage tube should be selected carefully. Some data suggest that polypropylene (Polypropylene) is related to the adsorption of nucleic acids, especially at high tension ion concentration, polyethylene plastic (Polyethylene) than polypropylene (Polypropylene) Easier to grab DNA/RNA. In addition, when using breakable swabs, the storage tube should try to choose a container with a height of more than 8 cm to prevent the contents from splashing and contaminating when the swab is broken.

Virus Sampling Tube

4. Water for production of preservation solution: Ultrapure water used for the production of preservation solution should be filtered by an ultrafiltration membrane with a molecular weight of 13,000 to ensure the removal of biologically derived polymer impurities, such as RNase, DNase and endotoxin, and ordinary purification is not recommended. water or distilled water.

About the use of virus sampling tubes

Sampling using virus sampling tubes is mainly divided into oropharyngeal sampling and nasopharyngeal sampling:

1. Oropharyngeal swab sampling:

first press the tongue with a tongue depressor, then insert the head of the sampling swab into the throat to wipe the bilateral pharyngeal tonsils and posterior pharyngeal wall, and wipe the posterior pharyngeal wall with mild force, avoiding touching the tongue department.

2. Nasopharyngeal swab sampling:

measure the distance from the tip of the nose to the earlobe with a swab and mark it with your fingers, insert the sampling swab into the nasal cavity in the direction perpendicular to the nose (face), and the swab should be inserted at least half the length from the earlobe to the tip of the nose. Leave the swab in the nose for 15-30 seconds, swirl gently 3-5 times, and withdraw the swab.

It is not difficult to see from the method of use, whether it is an oropharyngeal swab or a nasopharyngeal swab, sampling is a technical task, which is difficult and easy to contaminate. The quality of the collected samples is directly related to the subsequent testing. If the viral load of the collected samples Low, easy to cause false negatives, difficult to diagnose.

Most of the samples recommended by the kits currently on the market are oropharyngeal swabs or nasopharyngeal swabs and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. This can greatly reduce the difficulty of the samplers’ work. After all, it is not difficult to collect venous blood samples, and like the detection of hepatitis C RNA, about 5 ml of EDTA anticoagulated blood samples are separated into plasma, and the extracted and purified RNA can fully meet the needs of PCR detection.