More comfortable saliva-based test will also ease burden on medical workers at airports

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/30
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced on Sunday (Aug. 30) that a new and less unpleasant way to test for coronavirus will replace the traditional throat swabs at the country's airports beginning Tuesday (Sept. 1).

Currently, medical workers need to push a pencil-length swab to the very back of recipients' nasal passages to test for the novel coronavirus, which many find uncomfortable. More manpower is also required for this type of test.

CECC Spokesperson Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that throat swabs and saliva tests were conducted simultaneously on 1,226 passengers arriving at Taiwan's airports from July 2 to Aug. 24. Of the 24 virus-carriers identified that day, both tests identified the same 12, but salivaomics detected more of the remaining positive cases than the throat swabs, leading to the change in testing procedures.

Chuang said that under the new test, passengers will be asked to sanitize both hands while wearing a mask before they open up the test kit box. Recipients will be asked to cough with their mouths closed and keep them closed for one minute, resulting in the accumulation of saliva, before spitting into the box.    [FULL  STORY]