Performance of 3 Sampling Methods for the Detection of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) With Real-time Reverse Transcriptase PCR

Comparison of the Performance of 3 Sampling Methods for the Detection of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) With Real-time Reverse Transcriptase PCR

The performance of 3 different sampling methods (2 nasopharyngeal swabs, 1 oropharyngeal swab) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 with real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction will be compared.

Thirty volunteers will be recruited from health care workers suspicious for Covid-19, who consult the ocupational physician for Covid-19 testing.

For each volunteer, 3 swabs will be taken:

• Flocked eSwab (Copan, Italy) of the oropharynx
• Flocked nasopharyngeal eSwab (Copan, Italy) of the nasopharynx
• Dry flocked nasopharyngeal Swab, placed in lysis buffer Each swab will be tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 with an in-house reverse-transcriptase real-time PCR (Egene).

Performance of each method will be calculated.

Inclusion Criteria:

• health care workers with symptoms suspicious for Covid-19

Exclusion Criteria:

• none