Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Who will be affected?
Readers: No access to all 28 journals. We recommend accessing our articles via PubMed Central
Authors: No access to the submission form or your user account.
Reviewers: No access to your user account. Please download manuscripts you are reviewing for offline reading before Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 7:00 PM.
Editors: No access to your user account to assign reviewers or make decisions.
Copyeditors: No access to user account. Please download manuscripts you are copyediting before Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 7:00 PM.
Soto RA, Paul L, Porucznik CA, Xie H, Stinnett RC, Briggs B, Biggerstaff M, Stanford JB, Schlaberg R
Effectiveness of Self-Collected, Ambient Temperature–Preserved Nasal Swabs Compared to Samples Collected by Trained Staff for Genotyping of Respiratory Viruses by Shotgun RNA Sequencing: Comparative Study
A comparative effectiveness of self-collected, ambient temperature-preserved nasal swabs with sample collection by trained staff for genotyping of respiratory viruses by shotgun RNA sequencing
Raymond A Soto;
Litty Paul;
Christina A Porucznik;
Heng Xie;
Rita C Stinnett;
Ben Briggs;
Matthew Biggerstaff;
Joseph B Stanford;
Robert Schlaberg
ABSTRACT
Background:
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has underscored the need for field specimen collection and transport to diagnostic and public health laboratories.
Objective:
Self-collected nasal swabs transported without dependency on a cold chain have the potential to remove critical barriers to testing and expand testing capacity and, to reduce opportunities for exposure of health professionals in the context of a pandemic.
Methods:
We compared nasal swab collection by study participants from themselves and their children at home to collection by trained research staff. Swabs were placed in temperature-stable preservative and respiratory viruses were detected by shotgun RNA sequencing, enabling viral genome analysis.
Results:
Study participants reported that self-collection was acceptable. Agreement between identified respiratory viruses in both swabs by sequencing demonstrated adequate collection technique was achieved by brief instructions.
Conclusions:
Our results demonstrate the feasibility of scalable and convenient means for identification of respiratory viruses and implementation in pandemic preparedness for influenza virus and other respiratory pathogens.
Citation
Please cite as:
Soto RA, Paul L, Porucznik CA, Xie H, Stinnett RC, Briggs B, Biggerstaff M, Stanford JB, Schlaberg R
Effectiveness of Self-Collected, Ambient Temperature–Preserved Nasal Swabs Compared to Samples Collected by Trained Staff for Genotyping of Respiratory Viruses by Shotgun RNA Sequencing: Comparative Study