Department I of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 62, 50937, Cologne, Germany.
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), B-FAST Project in "NaFoUniMedCovid19" (FKZ: 01KX2021), Bonn, Germany.
Infection. 2023 Apr;51(2):459-464. doi: 10.1007/s15010-022-01865-0. Epub 2022 Jun 27.
School closures have been used as part of lockdown strategies to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, adversely affecting children's health and education. To ensure the accessibility of educational institutions without exposing society to the risk of increased transmissions, it is essential to establish SARS-CoV-2 testing strategies that are child-friendly, scalable and implementable in a daily school routine. Self-sampling using non-invasive saliva swabs combined with pooled RT-qPCR testing (Lolli-Method) has been proven to be a sensitive method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2.
We conducted a pilot project in Cologne, Germany, designed to determine the feasibility of a large-scale rollout of the Lolli-Method for testing without any additional on-site medical staff in schools. Over a period of three weeks, students from 22 schools were sampled using the Lolli-Method. At the end of the project, teachers were asked to evaluate the overall acceptance of the project.
We analyzed a total of 757 pooled RT-qPCRs obtained from 8,287 individual swabs and detected 7 SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals. The Lolli-Method was shown to be a feasible and accepted testing strategy whose application is only slightly disruptive to the daily school routine.
Our observations suggest that the Lolli-Method in combination with pooled RT-qPCR can be implemented for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in daily school routine, applicable on a large scale.
学校关闭已被用作封锁策略的一部分，以控制 SARS-CoV-2 的传播，这对儿童的健康和教育产生了不利影响。为了确保在不使社会面临传播风险增加的情况下能够接触到教育机构，有必要制定儿童友好、可扩展且可在日常学校例行活动中实施的 SARS-CoV-2 检测策略。使用非侵入性唾液拭子进行自我采样，并结合 RT-qPCR 检测进行 pooling（Lolli 方法）已被证明是一种检测 SARS-CoV-2 的敏感方法。
我们在德国科隆进行了一项试点项目，旨在确定在学校没有任何额外现场医务人员的情况下大规模推广 Lolli 方法进行检测的可行性。在三周的时间里，来自 22 所学校的学生使用 Lolli 方法进行了采样。在项目结束时，要求教师评估项目的整体接受程度。
我们分析了总共 757 个从 8287 个单独拭子中获得的 RT-qPCR pooled，检测到 7 名 SARS-CoV-2 感染个体。Lolli 方法被证明是一种可行且可接受的检测策略，其应用对日常学校常规的干扰很小。
我们的观察结果表明，Lolli 方法结合 RT-qPCR pooled 可用于日常学校常规中的 SARS-CoV-2 监测，具有广泛的适用性。
