The transport medium with swabs has significant advantages in virus detection in many aspects. Here is a detailed introduction:

Protecting the integrity of viral nucleic acids

• Stabilizing the chemical environment: The basic buffer in the transport medium can maintain a stable pH value and provide a suitable chemical environment for viral nucleic acids. For example, in the nucleic acid detection of COVID-19, after the sample is collected and placed in a sampling tube containing the transport medium, during transportation and storage, the nucleic acid will not be degraded due to changes in the pH of the external environment, ensuring the accuracy of subsequent detection.
• Inhibiting nuclease activity: Some transport media contain nuclease inhibitors that can specifically inhibit the activity of nucleases and prevent them from degrading viral nucleic acids. For example, in the detection of some respiratory viruses, the transport medium effectively protects viral RNA and increases the positive rate of detection.

Maintaining viral activity

• Providing nutritional support: Some transport media add nutritional components required for virus growth, such as specific amino acids, vitamins, etc., which help maintain the activity of the virus for a certain period of time, so that the virus will not be inactivated due to lack of nutrition during transportation.
• Simulating physiological environment: The composition and osmotic pressure of the transport medium are close to the physiological environment of the human body, reducing the damage to the virus caused by environmental changes and helping the virus maintain its infectivity and biological characteristics.

Preventing sample contamination

• Antibacterial and antiviral: The transport medium usually contains antibacterial and antiviral agents such as gentamicin and amphotericin B, which can inhibit the growth and reproduction of bacteria, fungi and other miscellaneous bacteria that may exist in the sample, avoid the contamination and degradation of the virus sample by microorganisms, and ensure the reliability of the detection result.
• Avoiding cross-contamination: The transport medium with swabs is usually sealed and packaged, and the sampling tube is reasonably designed, which can effectively prevent the sample from leaking during transportation and avoid cross-contamination between different samples, ensuring the independence and accuracy of each sample detection result.

Facilitating sample collection and transportation

• Easy to operate: The transport medium with swabs is used in conjunction with swabs. When collecting samples, the operation is simple and convenient. Medical staff only need to collect samples according to the specifications and then put the swabs into the transport medium without additional complicated processing steps.
• Safe and stable: The transport medium has good stability and compatibility. It can better preserve samples under different temperatures and transportation conditions, reducing the strict requirements on transportation conditions and facilitating long-distance transportation and centralized detection of samples.