Open Access<p>Saliva as an Alternative Specimen for Molecular COVID-19 Testing in Community Settings and Population-Based Screening</p>
Author(s) -
Abiola Senok,
Hanan Al Suwaidi,
Yusrah Atrah,
Ola Al Ayedi,
Janan Al Zahid,
Aaron Han,
Asma Al Marzooqi,
Saba Al Heialy,
Basel Altrabulsi,
Laila AbdelWareth,
Youssef Idaghdour,
Raghib Ali,
Tom Loney,
Alawi AlsheikhAli
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
infection and drug resistance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.033
H-Index - 39
ISSN - 1178-6973
DOI - 10.2147/idr.s275152
Subject(s) - saliva , asymptomatic , medicine , drooling , gold standard (test) , covid-19 , population , surgery , disease , environmental health , infectious disease (medical specialty)
With the easing of restriction measures, repeated community-based sampling for tracking new COVID-19 infections is anticipated for the next 6 to 12 months. A non-invasive, self-collected specimen like saliva will be useful for such public health surveillance. Investigations on the use of saliva for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR have largely been among COVID-19 in-pa\tients and symptomatic ambulatory patients with limited work in a community-based screening setting. This study was carried out to address this paucity of data and reported discrepancies in diagnostic accuracy for saliva samples.