Nasal Swab
(Photo : Youtube/TLC)

Testing sites in the United States are now becoming more accessible and available, however, testing kits are running out of supplies which makes the testing sites useless.

In a recently published article in Latin Post, Vice-President Mike Pence has announced that Trump's administration has lifted "red tape" to have more accessible COVID-19 pandemic testing sites across the country.

The announcement was made after the increase of COVID-19 patients in the country that reaches now into 50 states with nearly 100 death toll.

However, even though testing sites are now more accessible to thousands of people who go to the hospital every day to be tested for the virus, there are only few supplies of testing kits. This problem makes the testing sites useless.

For this reason, the Italian and U.S. government have in close contact with the two top makers of testing kits or testing swabs that are used to test the patients for the virus.

There are three culture swabs needed during the test. First is from the nose. Second is from the throat. And third is saliva that requires a person to cough. 

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in order to achieve accurate results of the swabs, the materials needed should be made of synthetic fiber and not a wooden shaft. The materials should not contain calcium alginate because it could kill the bacteria needed in analyzing the test result. 

Moreover, the swabs have to be long and skinny enough to get to the nasopharynx, upper part of the throat, and behind the nose. 

CDC and U.S. FDA have strict guidelines in implementing the culture swabbing to the patients. The swabs used during the tests are put in transportable vials that are full of solutions known as "viral transport media." This makes the swabs to become testable. 

However, the increasing number of COVID-19 cases and the swelling number of patients who want to be tested for the virus cannot be accommodated by the testing sites due to lack of testing swabs. 

Soumi Saha, senior director of advocacy for Premier Inc., a group purchasing organization that procures supplies for 4,000 U.S. hospitals and health systems, said that the specialized swabs are now in dire demands. 

Saha said: "We have folks that can't get a hand on any of them right now. Hospitals want to do their part and want to expand access to testing, but they're hamstrung by the fact that they can't access the actual swabs."

This problem caught the attention of the former U.S. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb who wrote on his Twitter account that the lack of specialized swabs can be the next big problem of the country even if the testing sites have increased. 

At present, Missouri state Department of Health and Senior Services spokesperson Lisa Cox confirmed over the weekend that they are now experiencing the shortage of swabs. There were reports also that Ontario, Canada, and counties in Washington and Michigan have announced already the imitations of their testing swabs. 

One of the reasons seen why the production of these swabs is very slow it's because they are patented and regulated. This means that these swabs cannot be produced by any companies by duplicating the materials and on how it is made. 

This situation gives pressure to the top two largest manufacturers around the world. To address this problem and make the production faster, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services and other concerned agencies in the U.S. government have been in discussion with the company, Puritan Medical Products, over the past week to redirect its manufacturing capabilities to produce more specialized swabs. 

Meanwhile, Copan Diagnostics Inc., another specialty swab manufacturer, said that they are working round the clock to produce more testing swabs. They are doing extra efforts to meet the demand of their customers. They are currently based in Italy. 

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