A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test detects genetic material from a pathogen or abnormal cell sample. Ways of collecting samples include a nasal swab, a saliva swab, or taking a sample of blood.

“Infectious diseases don’t respect borders,” says Khoa Thai, a clinical microbiologist at the Star-shl medical diagnostics laboratory in the Netherlands. To limit their spread, we need a globally ...

Over the past four years, many of us have become accustomed to a swab up the nose to test for COVID-19, using at-home rapid antigen tests or the more accurate clinic-provided PCR tests with a longer ...