The difference between a pharyngeal swab and a nasopharyngeal swab is that nucleic acid testing, which is essential for early clinical detection, early reporting, early isolation and early detection, is a key technical support for effective prevention and control and is currently the "gold standard" for testing.
The specimens collected for nucleic acid testing are called swabs. The full names of the two methods are oropharyngeal swab and nasopharyngeal swab, respectively. There is no difference in the nature of the standardized practice of using oropharyngeal swabs or nasopharyngeal swabs to collect specimens for viral nucleic acid testing.
The difference is that one is to enter through the oral cavity to collect oropharyngeal specimens, and one is to enter through the nasal cavity to collect nasopharyngeal specimens. The current nucleic acid test is primarily an oropharyngeal swab collection.
