April 7, 2021

Real World Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Nasopharyngeal Swab Testing in a High Burden COVID-19 Region

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

Keywords (Tags): testing

• An observational analysis of hospitalized US patients who were retested for SARS-CoV-2 due to high clinician concern for a potential false-negative found that 7/160 (4.4%) patients with an initial negative nasopharyngeal PCR test had a subsequent positive test within 48 hours. The authors conclude that routine retesting for SARS-CoV-2 is not indicated and should only be considered when clinical suspicion is high.

Sangal et al. (Apr 7, 2021). Real World Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Nasopharyngeal Swab Testing in a High Burden COVID-19 Region. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1017/ice.2021.153