Data suggest that few immigrants to Canada with tuberculosis infection were infected within the preceding 2 years, when the risk for progression to tuberculosis disease is the highest.
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A new study published January 15 in JAMA Internal Medicine, led by Drs. Todd Lee and Emily McDonald from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), confirms the efficiency of saliva testing for COVID-19. This follows a study published earlier in the week by another RI-MUHC team showing that saliva samples for COVID-19 testing are as good as nasopharyngeal swabs, but cheaper. These findings could rapidly influence global public health policy for testing strategies.
âPrevious studies on the performance of saliva tests showed mixed results, but most of them compared saliva tests to the standard nasal swab test, as if it was a perfect test. Interestingly, there are no perfect tests for COVID-19,â says Dr. Guillaume Butler-Laporte, first author of the study released today.
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Saliva sampling could be a similarly sensitive, less costly alternative to nasal swabs for COVID-19 testing
Nasopharyngeal swabs are the primary sampling method used for detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but they require a trained health care professional and extensive personal protective equipment. Saliva-based sampling for detecting SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to address many barriers associated with nasopharyngeal swabs. Authors from McGill University summarize evidence comparing the sensitivities for detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection between nasopharyngeal swabs and saliva samples. They found that saliva sampling to be a similarly sensitive and less costly alternative that could replace nasopharyngeal swabs for collection of clinical samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing.