Below please find a summary and link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. The summary below is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go.annals.org/coronavirus.
Salivary Detection of COVID-19
Standard testing for SARSCoV-2 requires a nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab but has several limitations, such as the need for health care human resources and PPE, and also has the potential for transmission in transit to or at the testing center. There is an urgent need for innovative testing strategies to expedite identification of cases and facilitate mass testing.
Researchers from the University of Ottawa, Dalhousie University, and the National Microbiology Laboratory, determined that standard diagnostic methods of nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs detected more COVID-19 cases than saliva testing among patients who were asymptomatic but at high risk or who were mildly symptomatic. Despite a lower estimated rate of detection compared to swab testing, saliva testing has several advantages, as it does not require trained staff or PPE, can be done outside testing centers, and may be better tolerated in challenging or pediatric populations. Read the full text: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-4738.