A decade ago Willy Ssengooba began crisscrossing Uganda, training health-care workers on how to use a new machine to detect tuberculosis. The deadly lung disease infects around 90,000 people in the ...

Researchers often call the polymerase chain reaction test – known as the PCR test – "the gold standard" for detecting the COVID-19 virus. The test is considered highly reliable and effective, and it ...

A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test detects genetic material from a pathogen or abnormal cell sample. Ways of collecting samples include a nasal swab, a saliva swab, or taking a sample of blood.

Polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests for COVID-19 are highly accurate. People on social media, however, are circulating lists of germs that they baselessly claim will cause such tests to be ...