Validation of Saliva as the Clinical Specimen Type for a University-Wide COVID-19 Surveillance Program.

ABSTRACT: At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Georgia Institute of Technology made the decision to keep the university doors open for on-campus attendance. To manage COVID-19 infection rates, internal resources were applied to develop and implement a mass asymptomatic surveillance program. The objective was to identify infections early for proper follow-on verification testing, contact tracing, and quarantine/isolation as needed. Program success depended on frequent and voluntary sample collection from over 40,000 students, faculty, and staff personnel. At that time, the nasopharyngeal (NP) swab, not saliva, was the main accepted sample type for COVID-19 testing. However, due to collection discomfort and the inability to be self-collected, the NP swab was not feasible for voluntary and fr

SUBMITTER: Farrell ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11437455 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature