Diagnostic accuracy of nasopharyngeal swab, nasal swab and saliva swab samples for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 using RT-PCR

Background The current gold standard in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) diagnostics is the real-time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) samples. Alternatively, nasal swab (NS) or saliva swab (SS) specimens are used, although available data on test accuracy are limited. We examined the diagnostic accuracy of...