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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SALIVA BASED TEST IN THE DETECTION OF COVID-19 AMONG SUSPECTED PATIENTS. A LITERATURE REVIEW

. SABA PARVEEN, QASIM KHALID & SALMAN SHAMS


Abstract

Background: The World Health Organization declared a pandemic when severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 spread globally. Fever, cough, weariness, minor dyspnea, sore throat, headache, conjunctivitis, and gastrointestinal difficulties are the primary COVID-19 symptoms. Saliva droplets and nasal discharge may spread this extremely contagious sickness. Real-time PCR diagnoses nasal swab, tracheal aspirate, and broncho-alveolar lavage samples.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of saliva based test in the detection of covid-19 among suspected patients.

Material & Methods: This review study followed PRISMA guidelines for honest reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus, CENTRAL, Science Direct, Web of Science, and Google scholar were searched till December 2020. Only SARS-CoV-2 clinical features and therapy papers were eligible. This review excludes non-scientific views, reports, letters, and news stories. This review asked: Is saliva a better SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic specimen than RT-PCR pharyngeal swab tests? Original, full-text English papers on saliva as a COVID-19 diagnostic specimen were eligible for review. Excluded were letters, narrative reviews, animal studies, and duplicates. Searches were not limited by publication date. Thus, all relevant evidence up to December 2020 that satisfied inclusion criteria was examined.

Results: Saliva is an excellent specimen for community and population-based screening due to its strong diagnostic accuracy and ease of using material without transport medium for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR. self-generated saliva sample without coughing. This non-invasive saliva collection method may minimize aerosols and infection risk for clinic staff. Although saliva samples may be combined with sputum, evaluating them may be easier than bronchoalveolar lavage fluid for those with severe illness.

 

Key words: SARS-CoV-2,RT-PCR, Oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs.

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