Chinese Doctors: Swabbing a Person’s Anus is More Effective
January 28, 2021 10:28AM EST
BEIJING, CHINA – SEPTEMBER 24: A technician works in a lab at Sinovac Biotech where the company is producing their potential COVID-19 vaccine CoronaVac during a media tour on September 24, 2020 in Beijing, China. Sinovacs inactivated vaccine candidate, called CoronaVac, is among a number of companies in the global race to control the coronavirus pandemic. The company is running Phase 3 human trials in four countries and ramping up production to 300 million doses per year at a new manufacturing facility south of Beijing. A lack of domestic coronavirus cases in China has meant that companies developing vaccines have shifted their focus overseas to conduct trials to gather the volume of data necessary to win regulatory approvals. When Chinas government launched an emergency use program in July to vaccinate groups of essential workers, Sinovacs chief executive says the company supplied tens of thousands of doses, even as trials are still underway. About 90% of Sinovacs employees have chosen to receive injections of CoronaVac, which is one of eight Chinese vaccine candidates in human trials. The company is also seeking approval to begin clinical trials with teenagers and children as young as age 3.(Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Researchers in China say they’ve come up with a more accurate COVID-19 testing method – using an anal swab.
Li Tongzeng, deputy director of infectious disease at Beijing You’an Hospital, says studies indicate COVID lives longer in a person’s anus than in other parts of the body. Therefore, swabbing a person’s back door would provide more reliable results, Tongzeng says.
Which is better: having your anus swabbed, or getting a swab shoved up your nose?
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