Today I would like to share with you some questions about the nucleic acid detection of COVID-19.
What about nucleic acid testing?
The new coronavirus is a member of the large coronavirus family.
Coronaviruses are known to cause colds and more serious diseases such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
The new coronavirus is a new coronavirus strain that has never been found in humans before. It is essentially a single-stranded RNA virus.
Specimen Collection Swab
RNA has two characteristics:
The first is that samples are not easy to keep for a long time.
The second is that RNA viruses are prone to mutation, so it is difficult to form sustained immunity.
For example, the flu virus that circulates every year requires the latest vaccination, also because the virus type often changes.
This requires that samples be kept fresh when performing nucleic acid tests.
At present, throat swabs are taken and sent to a special testing room within 1 hour.
This nature determines that it is impossible for every patient to do it immediately, for example, patients who come in the middle of the night cannot do it.
Only wait for the instrument to turn on the next day.
Taking the Specimen Collection Swab is a high-risk operation.
According to current clinical research, there are three ways to spread pneumonia of new coronavirus infection, direct transmission, aerosol transmission, and contact transmission.
The droplets are mixed in the air to form an aerosol, which causes infection after inhalation.
Therefore, there is a risk of infection for the sampling personnel.
How long does it take for a nucleic acid test to produce results?
At present, the nucleic acid detection of New Crown mainly uses the nucleic acid detection kit of RT-PCR method.
In simple terms:
1. The tester will first use the nucleic acid extraction kit to extract nucleic acids from the patient's specimen;
2. Copy the extracted nucleic acid into the detection reagent;
3. Judgment of results: if the test result is negative, the patient is relatively safe, but the danger cannot be completely ruled out (because the result may be false negative due to the quality of the specimen or the existence of inhibitors); if the test result is positive, the patient is at risk .
The first and second steps have strict operating procedures and operating conditions, and the overall time is between 1-4 hours.
Patients cannot leave the hospital at random during nucleic acid testing and while waiting for nucleic acid testing.
If the nucleic acid is negative for two consecutive rechecks, there are no clinical symptoms, and further isolation based on the condition.
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