Transport Swab with Cary Blair Medium is used for recovery of aerobic, anaerobic and fastidious bacteria from faecal specimens.
A transport medium is a non-nutritive, chemically defined, semi-solid, buffered medium. The sole purpose of this medium is to provide a controlled environment and to maintain the viability of organisms during the time from collection until the examination of the specimen. Transport medium should be essentially non-nutritive so that the test organisms do not rise in numbers during transport. Cary-Blair Medium is used for the collection and transport of clinical specimens. Originally the transport medium was devised by Stuart et al., for carrying the gonococcal specimens to the laboratory. Later on, for transporting faecal specimens, Cary and Blair devised a new medium which consisted less nutrients, low oxidation and reduction potential and a high pH. Various authors have then used this medium and reported it to be quite satisfactory for transporting the clinical specimens.
Composition*
| Ingredients | g/L |
| Disodium Phosphate | 1.1 |
| Sodium Thioglycollate | 1.5 |
| Sodium Chloride | 5.0 |
| Agar | 5.0 |
*Adjusted to suit performance parameters.
Final pH (at 25°C): 8.4 ± 0.2
