2014 · Journal of clinical microbiology · paywalled
Evaluation of performance and acceptability of two rapid oral fluid tests for HIV detection in Mozambique
Semá Baltazar et al.
The finding, in our words
Two rapid oral fluid HIV tests demonstrated sensitivities of 99.8% and 100% with specificities of 99.8% in a Mozambican population, performing comparably to the national blood-based algorithm despite participants marginally preferring blood testing. The findings validate saliva self-sampling for decentralised HIV screening.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This review establishes that microsampling across blood, saliva, urine and stool matrices offers validated workflows and regulatory recognition for human biomonitoring comparable to conventional methods. It finds that these decentralised approaches enhance participant acceptability and enable screening in remote or low-resource settings.
Self-collected saliva without additives showed comparable diagnostic performance to nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 detection, with 87.6% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity. The sample remained stable for 72 hours and was deemed acceptable by both patients and staff, supporting its use in decentralised, patient-centric screening programmes.
Saliva shows promise as a patient-friendly alternative to nasopharyngeal swabs for COVID-19 diagnosis, particularly for decentralised testing, though variability in collection and processing methods affects sensitivity. Standardising protocols could improve reliability and support wider use in decentralised diagnostics.
Capillary blood self-sampling achieved 98.3% agreement with venous samples for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies and 100% for IgA among 60 participants, demonstrating accuracy for vaccine monitoring. Saliva self-collection proved feasible with excellent usability, offering a patient-centric alternative for decentralised immunogenicity assessment.
Generic saliva self-collection devices enabled safe unsupervised home sampling that yielded adequate quantity and quality for SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid gene detection, with stability maintained after temperature cycling to simulate summer and winter shipping. This supports a patient-centric decentralised approach to infectious-disease screening without requiring healthcare professionals.