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| Science & Technology |
| COVID-19 gargle and rinse test could provide alternative to nasal swab |
| 2020-10-28 |
| [JPost] - A researcher from the University of Arizona tried to create a new way of testing the presence of COVID-19, relying only on a simple saltwater rinse and gargle for students and employees of the university who are dreading the swab up the nose. On the campus, two types of tests have usually been offered to students and employees so far to detect the presence of COVID-19: the quick-turnaround antigen tests and the polymerase chain reaction test — but both require the nasal swab. Michael Worobey, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology who specializes in the evolution of viruses, began using the mouth rinse test in limited campus populations after reading a paper on the test published by researchers in British Columbia on medRxiv, a preprint server for health sciences research. "It's vastly more tolerable than the nasopharyngeal swab — and people can do it all by themselves and even keep their mask on almost the whole time," said Worobey. He even demonstrated the procedure himself. After opening a crayon-sized, pink plastic vial containing a liquid, "you pull your mask down, and you just squirt a bit of sterile saltwater into your mouth," he explained. The liquid needs to be swished around in the mouth for five seconds, then the head needs to be tilted back for the 10 seconds of gargling. After a total of three cycles of swishing and gargling, the liquid should be spit into the sample cup and finally the lid must be screwed back. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |