THROAT TESTING

TESTING ON THROAT SECRETIONS LOWERS WRONG NEGATIVES-

When a person carrying a pathogen test negative has been reported several times during the COVID-19 pandemic. These outcomes have come up during nasal swab testing of patients who have seemingly retrieved from the disease-but have later been found to be still carrying the virus. Now, researchers have reported that testing of oropharyngeal secretions from the part of the throat at the back of the mouth which may reduce the number of false-negative results. A minor amount of patients who had trialed negative through nasal swabs was found to be positive through the treating of oropharyngeal secretions. The education included 75 ready-for release COVID-19 patients who tested negative using nasal swabs. Because of the detection of potential false negatives in that cohort, a second study paired oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal samples collected from 50 additional Covid-19 recruits during their recovery stage. Oropharyngeal secretions obtained from 2 of the 75 subjects in the first study yielded positive results for SAR-CoV2.In the second study, oropharyngeal samples missed only 14% of positive cases, compared with 59% for the nasal samples. A sampling of oropharyngeal secretions is a simple procedure that can be performed in any quarantine setting. It minimizes contact between healthcare workers and patients, thereby reducing the risk of virus transmission. The NPS test has the possibility of sending home more patients who still have the contamination while the OS test will make such errors in fewer patients. Although OS sampling improves the accuracy of  SARS-CoV2 nucleic acid testing, it must be emphasized that this conclusion is based on very small sample size.