Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Gargle, Spit, and Sputum Specimens

  1. Eero Poukka
  2. Henna Mäkelä
  3. Lotta Hagberg
  4. Thuan Vo
  5. Hanna Nohynek
  6. Niina Ikonen
  7. Kirsi Liitsola
  8. Otto Helve
  9. Carita Savolainen-Kopra
  10. Timothée Dub

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Abstract

Control of the COVID-19 pandemic relies heavily on a test-trace-isolate strategy. The most commonly used specimen for diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is a nasopharyngeal swab.

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  1. Version published to 10.1128/spectrum.00035-21
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.02.21255857: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: During the first home visit, we gathered informed consent, gave participants a link to an online symptom-questionnaire and collected a NPS and gargle specimen (gargle 1).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The main limitations of our work are that we did not analyse whether delayed transport or extended storage before analysis could hamper sensitivity as all samples were transported and processed on the very same day and our low sample size (40 participants in total), however we conducted this study as an exploratory assessment of alternative specimen collection. We focused on patients with the most common clinical picture of COVID-19: mild symptoms, as they are the ones that would most benefit from non-invasive alternative specimen collection. An additional strength was that all samples were collected within 1-2 days after diagnosis, while patients were still at the acute phase of the disease.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.02.21255857 on medRxiv