China considers that it is more reliable than the nasal smear to detect the COVVI-19 and now imposes it on all travelers wishing to go to China. Indeed, the rectal screening test is now compulsory.
According to the American news magazine Newsweek, it is now imposed on travelers, but more than a million people in Beijing have already done it.
“The method is considered to be more precise and would increase the chances of detection of the virus. This concerns in particular risky patients but also travelers arriving from abroad, ”says Newsweek.
The rectal screening “increases the detection rate of infected people” because the coronavirus remains present longer in the anus than in the airways, the doctor Li Tongzeng, of the You’an hospital in Beijing, said on Central TV.
This very special screening should not, however, be generalized. Following the reactions of Internet users, judging the rectal test “very humiliating”
Following the lively reactions, the central television of China said that “these rectal tests were not intended to be generalized in the country, because they are not practical enough, unlike conventional PCR tests, whose reliability is not called into question”.