Now that the epidemic is under control, do you need a throat swab?

swab

preface

Now it is October of 2020. As we all know, this year is not a peaceful year. Because of the outbreak of the epidemic, we have brought a lot of inconvenience to our life and work.

Fortunately, the epidemic situation has been controlled in China. Do we still need the throat swabs that were used most frequently before?

The function of throat swab

First of all, what is the function of throat swab? Used the throat swab examination is mainly to check the throat of diphtheria,

acute suppurative tonsillitis, acute pharyngitis and other important examination methods of pharyngeal diseases.

The specific operation is to press the tongue of the patient with a tongue depressor, take a little throat secretion with a clean swab, and examine it under a microscope.

These secretions can also be used for drug sensitivity test to find harmful bacteria colonized in the throat, providing clinical help for the next step of diagnosis and medication guidance.

Pharyngeal swab examination will have certain discomfort reaction, some patients in the throat swab examination will have mild pharyngeal reflex, but it can be tolerated,

so throat swab examination is very necessary. What’s more, what throat swabs do during the epidemic is to take secretions to check for new coronavirus.

How to use throat swab

And now it is autumn and winter season, the climate is relatively dry,

there are more children in this season is very easy to appear throat inflammation,

swallowing food throat pain, because of throat inflammation or bronchitis caused by aphasia, nasopharyngitis and a series of symptoms of pharyngitis,

causing pharyngitis pathogenic microorganisms, mainly viruses, occasionally also bacteria. The throat swab test can quickly detect whether the pathogen causing the infection is bacteria or virus. How does this test operate? Let’s take a look at it

How to use throat swab:

① With the help of tongue depressor, the subjects opened their mouth and made a “ah” sound. The palate was lifted up to expose the posterior pharyngeal wall. The swab crossed the root of the tongue and reached the pharyngeal stenosis. Quickly wipe the palatal arch, pharyngeal and tonsillar secretions on both sides.

② Put the swab into the virus transport medium, and break the swab rod with the aid of the cap, and put it completely in the tube.

③ Tighten the pipe cover, mark it and put it into a plastic bag for sealing.

How to judge the presence of virus:

We take bacteria as an example.

If the result of ordinary test is positive, it means that the bacteria have been found and the medicine can be applied directly to the case.

However, if the test is negative, it means that the bacteria need to be cultured, and the bacterial culture takes about 24 hours to 48 hours to have results.

The symptoms of viral infection are bacteria, and the results are negative

But this common detection process is long for patients, and throat swab can quickly determine the pathogen at the first visit, and basically determine the medication plan before the patient leaves the hospital.

This is a convenient, noninvasive and rapid examination.

However, it should be noted that this rapid detection is not 100%.

If there is a problem with the quality of throat swab, false negative is likely to occur.