Reliability of self-sampling for accurate assessment of respiratory virus viral and immunologic kinetics

Alpana Waghmare; Elizabeth M Krantz; Subhasish Baral; Emma Vasquez; Tillie Loeffelholz; E. Lisa Chung; Urvashi Pandey; Jane Kuypers; Elizabeth R Duke; Keith R Jerome; Alexander L Greninger; Daniel B Reeves; Florian Hladik; E Fabian Cardozo-Ojeda; Michael Boeckh; Joshua T Schiffer

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.03.20051706 doi: medRxiv preprint respiratory virus infection. These results have enormous practical implications. Self-collection at 241 home is safe, non-invasive and easily learned, allowing a reliable method for diagnosis as well 242 as therapeutic monitoring. Because our kits could easily be used at home or in a drive through 243 testing environment, they provide an avenue to eliminate contact between an infected and 244 contagious person, and health care providers. They could also be used in the hospital or clinic 245 setting, thereby saving personnel time and personal protective equipment. The use of 246 comfortable, safe and affordable foam swabs also highlights the possibility of scaling this 247 approach to pediatric, adult, elderly and immunocompromised populations. For the current 248 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and future deadly respiratory virus epidemics, home self-swabbing will 249 be a vital tool. Additional anatomical sites have also been considered for increasing yield, and current FDA 261 recommendations suggest use of both a mid-turbinate nasal swab and an oropharyngeal swab 262 to maximize yield in the absence of nasopharyngeal swabbing 23 . Our prior data demonstrate 263 that self-collected throat swabs in addition to self-collected foam nasal swabs do not increase 264 yield significantly for respiratory viruses 26 , suggesting that additional oral swabbing may not be 265 needed, especially in the setting of swab shortages. Self-collected foam swabs have been used 266 . CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.