Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Chu, Chun Yat
• Marais, Gert
• Opperman, Christoffel
• Doolabh, Deelan
• Iranzadeh, Arash
• Marais, Carisa
• Cox, Helen
• Williamson, Carolyn
• Hardie, Diana
• Brink, Adrian

Titel

Performance of saliva and mid-turbinate swabs for detection of the beta variant in South Africa

Ist Teil von

• The Lancet infectious diseases, 2021-10, Vol.21 (10), p.1354-1354

Ort / Verlag

United States: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In December, 2020, South Africa faced an exponential surge in COVID-19 cases, which was associated with replacement of circulating lineages with a novel variant of concern (VOC), the beta variant (B.1.351 lineage).1 Preliminary analyses suggested that this variant, defined by three mutations at key sites in the receptor-binding domain, might have functional significance, including increased transmissibility.1 We compared the performance of saliva and mid-turbinate sampling, as non-aerosol-generating procedures, with nasopharyngeal samples for confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection2 before and after replacement with the beta VOC. All participants provided a supervised, self-collected saliva and mid-turbinate swab, in addition to the standard nasopharyngeal swab collected by health-care workers; all samples were tested with RT-PCR not targeting the S gene.3 Whole-genome sequencing of specimens with a cycle threshold (Ct) value of less than 30 was done. Another explanation could be the presence of increased quantities of beta virus RNA, reflected by decreased mean Ct values (appendix 2), for all sample types, which might support the preliminary modelling-based finding of increased transmissibility.1 Further investigation of the respiratory viral load kinetics is needed to establish whether prolonged elevation or greater peak values primarily explain our findings.