Wide sample applicability: It can be used for the collection, preservation, and transportation of various virus samples, such as the novel coronavirus, influenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, and hand – foot – and – mouth disease virus.
Good virus preservation effect: It can maintain the activity and integrity of viruses within a certain period, ensuring the accuracy of subsequent tests. For example, during the COVID – 19 pandemic, it provided strong support for large – scale nucleic acid testing, guaranteeing the activity of the virus during transportation.
Simple operation: It is usually equipped with a special sampling swab, and the operation is simple, facilitating sample collection by medical staff or relevant workers. After sampling, simply placing the swab into the tube containing the virus transport medium can complete the sample collection and preservation without complex procedures.
High safety: Some VTM – RT uses inactivated preservation solutions, which can quickly inactivate the viruses in the samples, reducing the biosafety risk and ensuring the safety of personnel during transportation and testing.
Strong stability: The components of the preservation solution in the transport system are stable and can maintain stable performance within a certain temperature range, which is beneficial to the long – distance transportation and long – term preservation of samples.
Diverse downstream applications: It is suitable for a variety of detection methods, such as virus culture, nucleic acid testing (PCR, RT – PCR, etc.), antigen testing, antibody testing, etc., providing convenience for different testing needs.
Disadvantages
Limited preservation time: Although it can preserve viruses for a certain period, if the specified preservation time is exceeded, the activity of the virus may be affected, thus affecting the accuracy of the test results.
Strict transportation requirements: Despite its relatively strong stability, it still needs to be transported and stored under appropriate temperature conditions, generally requiring refrigeration (2 – 8 °C) or low – temperature freezing storage. This may be restricted in some resource – scarce areas or regions with imperfect cold – chain conditions.
Relatively high cost: Including sampling swabs, transport media, packaging materials, and the cold – chain costs during transportation, the overall cost is relatively high.
Risk of cross – contamination: During the sample collection, transportation, and testing processes, if the operation is not standardized, cross – contamination between samples may occur, affecting the reliability of the test results.
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