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. 2015 Oct 17;2(4):ofv152.
doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofv152. eCollection 2015 Dec.

Self-Collected Nasal Swabs for Respiratory Virus Surveillance

Michael L Jackson  1 , Matthew Nguyen  1 , Beth Kirlin  1 , Lawrence Madziwa  1
Affiliations

Self-Collected Nasal Swabs for Respiratory Virus Surveillance

Michael L Jackson et al. Open Forum Infect Dis. .

Abstract

We tested whether 135 patients reporting acute respiratory illness (ARI) could self-collect nasal swab specimens and ship them for laboratory testing. Most subjects (78.2%) collected and shipped their specimens without errors; 10.5% excluded ≥1 packing components; 12.9% made ≥1 packing errors. Self-swabbing at home is feasible for confirming ARI etiology.

Keywords: detection; human; influenza; public health surveillance.

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