Abstract
The increasing number of cases of COVID-19 worldwide poses challenges to healthcare systems not only in effectively identifying individuals positive for SARS-CoV-2, but also in isolating cases to minimise contagion in early diagnosing more severe cases that will need hospitalization. Less-invasive collection methods are indispensable in a pandemic scenario as large-scale tests are necessary to understand the actual evolution of contagion in different populations, thus enabling decision-making based on scientific evidence. Saliva has been shown to be an alternative for diagnosing viral infections as this biological fluid can be easily and quickly collected without using specific devices and causing less discomfort during collection, which is an important factor for use in children. Despite the smaller percentage of severe cases of COVID-19 among children, they seem to play an important role in the contagion as they have the same potential of transmission as that of adults. Knowing the evolution of COVID-19 pandemic in children is extremely important, mainly regarding the changing in rules of social distancing, such as re-opening schools and recreational activities spaces. In addition, countless cases of a severe multi-systemic inflammatory syndrome that shares clinical and laboratory features with Kawasaki's disease have been recently related to SARS-CoV-2 infections in children, adolescents and young adults. In view of this scenario, the aim of this study was to present saliva as an alternative for seeking diagnostic and prognostic markers of COVID-19 in children, including adequate sample collection techniques for different age groups.
Highlights
For younger children, who seem to be one of the target audiences in the context of saliva sampling instead of respiratory secretions, a saliva test is a much more attractive and less invasive form of collection, and this paper describes a number of saliva collection techniques for children in different age groups
Saliva collection is a simpler and cheaper procedure, in addition to being better tolerated by children and their parents, which makes this method even more attractive for the pediatrician as it is a minimally invasive approach.[39]. Another advantage of this collection method is that it can be safely performed by the children’s parents, which significantly reduces the costs of COVID-19 testing, as no specialised professional is needed for the sample collection, and there is no risk of exposure for the healthcare team.[40]
COVID-19 symptomatic and asymptomatic patients can be diagnosed by means of saliva, whose advantage is to be less invasive, simpler, cheaper and relatively quickly sampled
Summary
Saliva: an important alternative for screening and monitoring of COVID-19 in children. Catielma Nascimento SANTOS(a) Karla Mayra REZENDE(a) Nilson Ferreira de OLIVEIRA. (a)Universidade de São Paulo – USP, School of Dentistry, Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. (b)Universidade Federal de Uberlândia – UFU, School of Dentistry, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Uberlândia, MG, Brazil. (c)Universidade de São Paulo – USP, School of Medicine, Institute of Tropical Medicine of São Paulo and Department of Pediatrics, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. (d)Universidade de São Paulo – USP, School of Dentistry, Department of Stomatology, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Declaration of Interests: The authors certify that they have no commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript
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