Open AccessSelf-Collected Anterior Nasal and Saliva Specimens versus Health Care Worker-Collected Nasopharyngeal Swabs for the Molecular Detection of SARS-CoV-2
Author(s) -
Kimberly E. Hanson,
Adam P. Barker,
David R. Hillyard,
Norbert Gilmore,
J. W. Barrett,
R. R. Orlandi,
S. M. Shakir
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of clinical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.349
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1070-633X
pISSN - 0095-1137
DOI - 10.1128/jcm.01824-20
Subject(s) - saliva , medicine , confidence interval , covid-19 , gastroenterology , virology , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , outbreak
We prospectively compared health care worker-collected nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) to self-collected anterior nasal swabs (ANS) and straight saliva for the diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in 354 patients. The percent positive agreement between NPS and ANS or saliva was 86.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 76.7 to 92.9%) and 93.8% (95% CI, 86.0 to 97.9%), respectively. The percent negative agreement was 99.6% (95% CI, 98.0 to 100.0%) for NPS versus ANS and 97.8% (95% CI, 95.3 to 99.2%) for NPS versus saliva. More cases were detected by the use of NPS ( n = 80) and saliva ( n = 81) than by the use of ANS ( n = 70), but no single specimen type detected all severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections.