Dr. Samuel McConkey:

We have looked at this. We published a study on this at Beaumont Hospital. Ear, nose and throat surgeons looked at how well the swabs were being done. The best swabs are taken from bronchoalveolar lavage, which is lung fluid that is quite invasive. The second best is nasopharyngeal swabs, which have to go right back to the back of the nasopharynx and tickle the back of the nose. Committee members may have seen me do that to Claire Byrne live on television, but I did not really go into her nose too much because she told me she did not want any bleeding. There is a one in 50 chance of bleeding and bleeding is obviously not good on live television. A lot of folk maybe do not go in far enough and only tickle the front of the nose. We used a mannequin for ear, nose and throat surgery to assess how well our swabbers swab the back of the nose. Most do a good job but some do not. Training for the swabbers is essential. We use an oropharyngeal swab for children. It is far less invasive and more like the throat swab used when we get a sore throat. That is not quite as good but it is obviously far more acceptable. It is the case that some swabs are not adequate.