[사진 출처 = 웨이보]About two weeks before the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China’s health authorities have restarted the ‘corona 19 anal test’.
According to the UK’s The Sun, the Corona 19 Prevention and Control Center in Beijing, China, conducted an anal sample collection gene amplification (PCR) test on 27 residents on the 15th. When the first Omicron infection was discovered in Beijing, tests were conducted on residents near the place of residence of the infected person.
The city authorities conducted a PCR test on 13,000 people, and in the process, an anal test was also performed. It seems that the decision was made as pressure on quarantine increased ahead of the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics on the 4th of next month.
Anal examination is a method in which a health authority official inserts the tip of a cotton swab 3 to 5 cm into the anus and rotates it several times to collect a sample. At this time, the examinee must take off his underwear. Anal examination was first introduced in Shanghai at the time of the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020.
Even among experts in China, opinions on the effectiveness of anal examination are divided. A Chinese medical authority said, “The anal test is more accurate than the conventional test because traces of the coronavirus remain in the anus longer than in the respiratory tract.”
On the other hand, Yang Zhanqi, deputy director of the pathogen biologist at Wuhan University, said, “The virus is an ineffective test because it infects the upper respiratory tract rather than the digestive tract.”
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