Medical workers check out people's health condition before vaccination at a temporary vaccination site in Chaoyang district, Beijing, on January 4. Photo: Li Hao/GT

The public should not worry about the positive environmental nucleic acid testing results at vaccination sites, which may be caused by cotton swabs used in vaccinations which can carry COVID-19 inactivated vaccine ingredients, Chinese infectious disease expert explained. 

With an increasing number of COVID-19 vaccinations given to people in China, how to best deal with the cotton swabs used to press the injection spot after the vaccination has brought about concerns with several incidents of positive nucleic acid test results found at some vaccination sites. 

In a recent case, positive nucleic acid test results were reported at Nanzhang People's Hospital in Nanzhang county of Xiangyang, Central China's Hubei Province; however, the test results were due to pollution from the hospital laboratory's nucleic acid detection reagent, which is non-infectious, said the county's epidemic prevention and control department on Tuesday. 

Work instructions on COVID-19 vaccination sites to prevent the environmental contamination of nucleic acid released recently by Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control stipulate that designated personnel should be arranged to supervise the recipients discarding the cotton swabs pressed on the injection spots in the designated recycling container and taking the swabs away from the sites is prohibited. Medical waste from the vaccination sites should be dealt with collectively. 

Wang Guiqiang, director of the Infectious Disease Department at Peking University First Hospital, stressed that the public should not worry about positive environment results of nucleic acid testing at vaccination sites that may be caused by cotton swabs used in vaccination as they can carry ingredients of the inactivated vaccines. 

Wang explained that since the vaccines use inactivated coronavirus, which is non-infectious, it is unnecessary for the public to panic about so-called environmental pollution even though they test positive in nucleic acid testing. 

What's more, the public shouldn't worry about cotton swabs sticking to clothes or spreading the virus through the cotton swabs. 

However, the expert reminded that immunity varies from person-to-person, and protection measures should still be taken after vaccination.