PCR Swabbing Questions

[confusedraven]

Hello Terri,
I member of your staff, can’t remember his name, sent me some PCR swabs to do at home. I recently moved and cannot find the vials with the sterile liquid in them. However, I still had the actual swabs. I was experiencing symptoms the last couple days and decided to use one of the swabs. I put in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator. So, my question is if it remained in the fridge until I was able to get some more transport vials sent, would the swab still be accurate? Also, who would I talk to about being sent more of the transport vials?

On a similar subject, I realized when I took my last swabs I was supposed to wet the swab with water before swabbing the skin. If I did this dry, would it make the swabs less accurate?

[Terri Warren]

It is fine to use dry swabs. I just find with men, wetting them slightly is less irritating and may pick up a few more cells. You know, the swabs would probably be fine but I don’t think I would recommend sending them as you would always doubt the results if they were negative, I think. You can call the office and ask for Roger and he will resend you swabs. That would be best, for greatest accuracy.

Terri

[Author]

Posts