Swine Flu Test
Swine flu or the H1N1 virus is a disease that has spread in a large number of countries around the world in a very short span of time. It is the alarming rate with which the disease spreads that has worried experts, who are trying to check its rise.
Swine flu symptoms are a lot like the symptoms of seasonal flu, which makes it extremely difficult to distinguish between the two without carrying out prescribed swine flu tests in the laboratories set-up especially for the purpose.
Where are swine flu tests conducted?
According to health experts around the world, it is extremely difficult to test whether a person has swine flu. Sometimes it can take days to confirm if the person is suffering from the virus. In India, swine flu cases have been on a steady rise. To facilitate early detection and prevention of this deadly disease, the government has set-up special laboratories in different cities around the country including Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad etc.
How is swine flu test different from seasonal flu?
While the symptoms of swine flu and those of seasonal flu are quite similar, testing for the two is very different. Testing for swine flu is more complicated than seasonal flu and none of the commonly used techniques are easily available.
The first method to determine swine flu is the lab test that involves growing virus culture in a lab and sequencing it while another way is PCR where the genes are amplified and then samples from another sick person are compared to those of the suspect.
What eats up a lot of time in the detection of the disease is the lengthy process that involves collecting the samples and sending them to a prescribed testing lab where these are purified to separate the natural compounds and ensure an error free reading.