Are saliva tests as good as swabs for COVID-19?
Saliva samples are as sensitive as nasopharyngeal swabs and are safer for healthcare professionals, US researchers say
COVID-19 tests using saliva samples show similar sensitivity as nasopharyngeal swabs and are safer for healthcare workers to perform, a US study suggests.
Researchers from Yale University compared saliva and nasopharyngeal swab samples from 70 hospitalised COVID-19 patients and 495 asymptomatic healthcare workers, using gold-standard RT-PCR.
In both groups, the saliva tests and the nasopharyngeal swab tests showed similar sensitivity for detecting the virus, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In addition, a higher percentage of saliva samples than nasopharyngeal swab samples were positive up to 10 days after the COVID-19 diagnosis.
