Skin / pus / wound Gram stain Pus in a sterile pot is always swab** preferred to a swab Culture for 48 Melioid culture if requested Uro-genital tract Penile / rectal swab Culture for Neisseria gonorrhoeae only Only cultured if flagged as from a suspected sexual abuse case Urine No Gram stain Clean catch preferred to bag specimen Culture for 24 hours Melioid culture if requested Urine for gonococcal No Gram stain or culture: CT / GC Male suspected sexual infection GeneXpert only cases only Vaginal swab Gram stain Please label if from a suspected sexual abuse case Culture for 48 hours CT / GC GeneXpert if requested **For these specimens, consider treating empirically first and then only sending culture in case of empiric treatment failure Further details on specific specimen types Sterile site specimens Blood, CSF, and fluid from body compartments should be sterile: any growth is considered significant with a few exceptions. The laboratory will identify all organisms to species level where possible and do antimicrobial susceptibility tests on all significant isolates. Blood cultures Thorough cleaning of the skin using chlorhexidine-alcohol (with prior washing with soap and water if the skin is visibly dirty), allowing the skin to dry after cleaning, and no palpation of the vein following cleaning will minimise the chance of introducing contaminating skin organisms into the blood culture bottle. Following removal of the metal cap from the blood culture bottle, the rubber septum should be cleaned with 70% alcohol and allowed to dry.
Skin / pus / wound swab** Gram stain Culture for 48 Melioid culture if requested Pus in a sterile pot is always preferred to a swab Uro-genital tract Penile / rectal swab Culture for Neisseria gonorrhoeae only Only cultured if flagged as from a suspected sexual abuse case Urine No Gram stain Culture for 24 hours Melioid culture if requested Clean catch preferred to bag specimen Urine for gonococcal infection No Gram stain or culture: CT / GC GeneXpert only Male suspected sexual cases only Vaginal swab Gram stain Culture for 48 hours CT / GC GeneXpert if requested Please label if from a suspected sexual abuse case **For these specimens, consider treating empirically first and then only sending culture in case of empiric treatment failure Further details on specific specimen types Sterile site specimens Blood, CSF, and fluid from body compartments should be sterile: any growth is considered significant with a few exceptions. The laboratory will identify all organisms to species level where possible and do antimicrobial susceptibility tests on all significant isolates. Blood cultures Thorough cleaning of the skin using chlorhexidine-alcohol (with prior washing with soap and water if the skin is visibly dirty), allowing the skin to dry after cleaning, and no palpation of the vein following cleaning will minimise the chance of introducing contaminating skin organisms into the blood culture bottle. Following removal of the metal cap from the blood culture bottle, the rubber septum should be cleaned with 70% alcohol and allowed to dry.
Microbiology_specimen_guideline.docx