If you are considering whether you should get a COVID-19 swab test, symptomatic or asymptomatic.
Under normal circumstances, the virus is spread through the air to our nose or mouth.
We have to wear masks to prevent the infection of the virus from the source.
Assuming we are unfortunate enough to carry the new crown, the virus will enter the throat through the nose and mouth, and then enter the alveoli through the trachea and bronchi.
At this time, we will use nasopharyngeal swabs and oropharyngeal swabs. The sample is collected from your nasal cavity or mouth when the nurse’s sister gives you a nucleic acid test.
At this time, we will use nasopharyngeal swabs and oropharyngeal swabs, which are the samples taken by the nurse sister from your nasal cavity or oral cavity when you are doing nucleic acid testing.
Due to the convenient operation and high accuracy, these two methods have been widely used. Now I will tell you about nasopharyngeal swabs and oropharyngeal swabs in detail.
What is a nasal swab test?
Specimen Collection Swab
Our respiratory tract is divided into the upper respiratory tract and lower respiratory tract. The upper respiratory tract includes the nose, pharynx, and larynx. The lower respiratory tract includes the trachea, bronchi, and lungs. In medicine, the cricoid cartilage is used as the boundary to distinguish.
The nasopharyngeal swab test is a medical test method. A medical cotton swab is used to wipe a little secretion from the nasopharynx of the human body, placing it in a special incubator, and placing it in a temperature-controlled device for cultivation. Can understand the patient’s condition, oral mucosa and pharyngeal infection.
Compared with oropharyngeal swabs, nasopharyngeal swab sampling has the following advantages:
1. When collecting oropharyngeal swab samples, the sampler can see the location of the pharynx to be sampled, and the irritation to the oropharyngeal mucosa may cause the sampled to cough, nausea, and even vomit.
2. When collecting nasopharyngeal flocked swab samples, the irritation to the nasopharyngeal mucosa is relatively small if the operation is standardized.
3. But the sampler cannot see the location of the pharynx for sampling, and mainly relies on the resistance felt by the hand to complete the sampling, so the technical requirements are higher, and the tools used are also more complicated.
4. It can stay in the pharynx for a longer time to obtain a sufficient amount of specimens, which is why the positive rate of the swabs reported in the literature is higher than that of oropharyngeal swabs.
5. The patient’s tolerance is good. After the skilled operation, sampling can be performed without anesthesia, but surface anesthesia and contraction of the nasal mucosa can be performed first for beginners.