COVID-19 Scan for Aug 29, 2022

Even young kids can accurately self-collect nasal swabs for COVID-19 testsChildren aged 4 to 14 years can accurately self-collect nasal swabs for COVID-19 testing after viewing simple instructions, suggests a study late last week in JAMA.Emory University researchers led the study of 197 symptomatic children aged 4 to 14 years who self-collected nasal swabs for COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing after being shown a 90-second video and given a handout with written and pictorial instructions.

The swabs were tested along with those collected by a healthcare worker (HCW) to determine result agreement.The children were recruited from the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta from July to August 2021.

Median patient age was 9 years, 55.7% were boys, and 44% tested positive for COVID-19 by both methods of specimen collection.Self-collected swabs with positive COVID-19 test results agreed with those from an HCW 97.8% of the time (95% confidence interval [CI], 94.7% to 100.0%), while negative results had 98.1% (95% CI, 95.6% to 100.0%) agreement.

SARS-CoV-2 viral loads didn't differ significantly.Children aged 8 and younger more often required help, such as further instruction, to accurately swab their nose (21.8% vs 6.1% for older children), but viral detection didn't differ between the two groups.The researchers said the results could inform school testing policies. "Pediatric self-swabbing will support expanded testing access and should make it even easier to test school age populations with fewer resources," coauthor Tim Stenzel, MD, PhD, of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said in a National Institute of Biomedical Imaging & Bioengineering (NIBIB) news release.In a related editorial, Ilan Youngster, MD, of