THE Chinese Embassy in the United States has further tightened rules for COVID-19 nucleic acid and serum testing as imported cases from the U.S. soar in China.

The detection of serum-specific IgM antibodies must be done by professional medical staff through venous blood sampling, and the test report must clearly show terms such as serum and IgM. Also fingertip blood testing is no longer accepted starting Wednesday, according to a notice on the embassy’s website posted Saturday.

The report must also indicate the specific detection methods, including colloidal gold, chemiluminescence and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. If it is a detection method other than the above, the specific methodology must be indicated.

The nucleic acid test report must clearly show not only terms like nucleic acid (NAAT) and rt-PCR, but also specific sampling methods, including pharyngeal swab and nasopharyngeal swab. Other methods must be specified.

Passengers going to China must go to the departure places of the direct flights between China and the U.S. — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Detroit and Dallas — for nucleic acid and antibody sampling, and send them to laboratories authorized by the Chinese embassy and consulates for testing.

(Shanghai Daily)