Useful: In patients where Chlamydia or Gonorrhoea is suspected at a genital site, including low vaginal swabs, cervical swab, rectal or urethral swabs. Take pharyngeal and rectal swabs routinely in MSM.

For women, self (or clinician) taken low vaginal swab, which can be taken without a speculum (SOLV- Self-Obtained Low Vaginal Swab) is preferred even if speculum examination is being performed (as there is good evidence that a low vaginal swab is more sensitive than a clinician-taken endocervical swab for Chlamydia).

In men, send a urethral, rectal and/or pharyngeal swab based on sexual and clinical history. Please do not use the red-topped virology transport medium (even though that also mentions chlamydia on its packaging). Due to the high sensitivity of all NAAT testing, extra care must be taken in both the clinical and laboratory settings to prevent contamination of samples (and thus false positive results).