Prospective Comparison of Saliva and Nasopharyngeal Swab Sampling for Mass Screening for COVID-19

Frontiers in Medicine

article

Mathieu Nacher¹  Aurélie Moua³  Mona Saout⁴  Stéphane Simon³  Manon Guidarelli¹  Muriel Galindo¹  Barbara Biche¹  William Faurous¹  Laurie Chaizemartin⁵  Aniza Fahrasmane¹  Devi Rochemont¹  Mayka Mergeay-Fabre¹  Nicolas Vignier¹  Astrid Vabret⁶  Magalie Demar³  Denis Blanchet³  Orelie Benoit⁷  Tristan Pozl⁷  Pauline Mesphoule⁷  Vincent Sainte-Rose³  Véronique Vialette³  Bruno Toulet³ 

[1] Centre d'Investigation Clinique (CIC) Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) 1424, Centre Hospitalier de Cayenne Andrée Rosemon;Département Formation Recherche (DFR) Santé, Université de Guyane;Laboratoire, Centre Hospitalier de Cayenne Andrée Rosemon;Unité Mixte de Recherche Tropical Biome and Immuno-Pathology (TBIP), Université de Guyane;Centre Délocalisé de Prévention et Soins de Maripasoula;Service de Virologie, CHU de Caen;Centre de Ressources Biologiques Amazonie, Centre Hospitalier de Cayenne Andrée Rosemon

关键词: COVID-19;    saliva;    sensitivity;    PCR;    nasopharyngeal;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmed.2021.621160

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Current testing for COVID-19 relies on reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction from a nasopharyngeal swab specimen. Saliva samples have advantages regarding ease and painlessness of collection, which does not require trained staff and may allow self-sampling. We enrolled 776 persons at various field-testing sites and collected nasopharyngeal and pooled saliva samples. One hundred sixty two had a positive COVID-19 RT-PCR, 61% were mildly symptomatic and 39% asymptomatic. The sensitivity of RT-PCR on saliva samples vs. nasopharygeal swabs varied depending on the patient groups considered or on Ct thresholds. There were 10 (6.2%) patients with a positive saliva sample and a negative nasopharyngeal swab, all of whom had Ct values <25 for three genes. For symptomatic patients for whom the interval between symptoms onset and sampling was <10 days sensitivity was 77% but when excluding persons with isolated N gene positivity (54/162), sensitivity was 90%. In asymptomatic patients, the sensitivity was only 24%. When we looked at patients with Cts <30, sensitivity was 83 or 88.9% when considering two genes. The relatively good performance for patients with low Cts suggests that Saliva testing could be a useful and acceptable tool to identify infectious persons in mass screening contexts, a strategically important task for contact tracing and isolation in the community.

【 授权许可】

CC BY