All passengers arriving in Taiwan from abroad starting in June will have saliva samples collected at the airport, rather than be subject to a nasal swab, for PCR testing, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced Tuesday.
Effective Wednesday, all arriving travelers will receive the less invasive test, but should not drink or eat in the period between landing and sample collection to ensure the quality of the sample, the CECC said in a statement.
Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (???) said at the CECC’s daily press briefing Tuesday that using the saliva-based test will reduce the amount of time needed to queue up at the airport, hence avoiding unnecessary gatherings.
“If everybody is queuing up to have nasal swabs, the chance of cluster infections increases,” said Chen, who heads the CECC.
When asked if saliva was less sensitive than nasopharyngeal swabs for diagnosing COVID-19, Chen replied that the test should be adequate if done correctly with the appropriate amount of sample collected.
“The benefits are that it will be able to catch the majority of cases and also lower the risk of cluster infections caused by many people waiting and queuing up,” Chen said.
Furthermore, Chen noted that the positive rate for imported cases is lower than in the past and around the same or lower than the positive rate domestically.
Taiwan on Tuesday recorded 80,705 new COVID-19 cases — 80,656 domestically transmitted and 49 imported, according to the CECC.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel