Pooled saliva samples for COVID-19 surveillance programme

Abstract

Health-care staff are at increased risk of COVID-19, thus putting themselves, their families, and their patients at risk. This increased risk negatively affects patient and staff mortality and morbidity (physical and mental). Furthermore, the need to isolate if either infected or exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus disease 2 (SARS-CoV-2) limits the ability of the UK NHS to deliver care when staff are absent from work. This potentially represents one of the biggest threats to providing timely health care as the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infection develops. Locally, approximately one fifth of our patient-facing respiratory physicians were infected during the first COVID-19 surge in the UK (March–July, 2020), and one third have had to isolate with symptoms or symptomatic contacts at least once. Local ward-based outbreaks have also occurred. Hence, there is a clear need for a robust COVID-19 surveillance system for NHS staff, enabling both staff and patients to have confidence that the risk of workplace nosocomial infection is as low as it can be.