Nahar Kamrun, Begum Mst Noorjahan, Tony Selim R, Jubair Mohammad, Hossain Md Abir, Karim Yeasir, Faisal Abdullah Al, Hossain Mohammad Enayet, Rahman Mohammed Ziaur, Rahman Mustafizur
Virology Laboratory Infectious Diseases Division, icddr,b: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh Mohakhali Dhaka 1212 Bangladesh.
Health Sci Rep. 2023 Apr 16;6(4):e1213. doi: 10.1002/hsr2.1213. eCollection 2023 Apr.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought serious threats to public health worldwide. Nasopharyngeal, nasal swabs, and saliva specimens are used to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, limited data are available on the performance of less invasive nasal swab for testing COVID-19. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of nasal swabs with nasopharyngeal swabs using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) considering viral load, onset of symptoms, and disease severity.
A total of 449 suspected COVIDCOVID-19 individuals were recruited. Both nasopharyngeal and nasal swabs were collected from the same individual. Viral RNA was extracted and tested by real-time RT-PCR. Metadata were collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS and MedCalc software.
The overall sensitivity of the nasopharyngeal swab was 96.6%, and the nasal swab was 83.4%. The sensitivity of nasal swabs was more than 97.7% for low and moderate values. Moreover, the performance of nasal swab was very high (>87%) for hospitalized patients and at the later stage >7 days of onset of symptoms.
Less invasive nasal swab sampling with adequate sensitivity can be used as an alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 by real-time RT-PCR.
2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）给全球公共卫生带来了严重威胁。鼻咽拭子、鼻拭子和唾液标本用于检测严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）。然而，关于侵入性较小的鼻拭子检测COVID-19的性能数据有限。本研究旨在使用实时逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR），从病毒载量、症状出现时间和疾病严重程度方面比较鼻拭子与鼻咽拭子的诊断性能。
共招募了449例疑似COVID-19患者。从同一个体采集鼻咽拭子和鼻拭子。提取病毒RNA并通过实时RT-PCR进行检测。使用结构化问卷收集元数据，并通过SPSS和MedCalc软件进行分析。
鼻咽拭子的总体敏感性为96.6%，鼻拭子为83.4%。对于低病毒载量和中等病毒载量，鼻拭子的敏感性超过97.7%。此外，对于住院患者以及症状出现7天以后的后期患者，鼻拭子的检测性能非常高（>87%）。
具有足够敏感性的侵入性较小的鼻拭子采样可作为鼻咽拭子的替代方法，用于通过实时RT-PCR检测SARS-CoV-2。
