BIOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF SPECIMEN

Any sample sent for screening in the microbiology laboratory must be handle with extreme care because the sample may have biological pathogens that may cause disease to the lab personnel or may even spread to the community, for example mycobacterium turberculosis, mycobacterium bovis. These organism are harmful, but they are curable, however is advisable to process all specimen in a safety cabinet when of these organism is suspected, so also the step strictly adhere to in other to resist any of this infection in the laboratory.

 

GENERAL PROCEDURE

The specimen send to laboratory for investigation must be properly labeled with patient name, date, and required test with clinical information of the patient accomplished with request form. In these case if there is any suspected of highly infectious, or the patient is reported to resisted to treatment, that should be notify on the request form in other to ensure proper precaution taken by the laboratory personnel that collected the sample and those that will be handling the sample.

Also any information on chemotherapy laboratory personnel should be notified i.e. when patient is undergoing urinary tract treatment, with that it may urge the laboratory personnel to examine excessive number of direct micro organism, i.e. urine specimen. But no visible growth examination may be carrying out except when subjected to culture. When patient is undergoing chemotherapy that might hinder the growth of the organism, in such case, neutralization of the chemotherapy is required, and it can be carry out when type of chemotherapy the patient is undergoing is known.

For example patient undergoing penicillin chemotherapy will require penicillin enzyme called penicilinase to neutralize the treatment.

An the specific container must be used for the specimen collection. And it is not also recormendable to culet all biological examination specimens should be collected in a sterile container. The type of container employed should be inclined to laboratory procedure hand book.

In this case, universal container is mostly used for urine and stool sample which are made up plastic with wide mouth, the same container is used for sputum, semen and some non blood related sample.