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. 2022 Jan 11;12(1):162.
doi: 10.3390/diagnostics12010162.

SARS-CoV-2 Saliva Mass Screening in Primary Schools: A 10-Week Sentinel Surveillance Study in Munich, Germany

Sebastian Vogel  1 , Ulrich von Both  2   3 , Elisabeth Nowak  1   2 , Janina Ludwig  1 , Alexandra Köhler  1 , Noah Lee  1 , Elisabeth Dick  1   2 , Anita Rack-Hoch  2 , Bernd Wicklein  1 , Jessica Neusser  1 , Tobias Wagner  1 , Alexandra Schubö  1 , Maxim Ustinov  1 , Werner Schimana  4 , Stephan Busche  5 , Laura Kolberg  2 , Martin Hoch  1
Affiliations

SARS-CoV-2 Saliva Mass Screening in Primary Schools: A 10-Week Sentinel Surveillance Study in Munich, Germany

Sebastian Vogel et al. Diagnostics (Basel). .

Abstract

Representative, actively collected surveillance data on asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections in primary schoolchildren remain scarce. We evaluated the feasibility of a saliva mass screening concept and assessed infectious activity in primary schools. During a 10-week period from 3 March to 21 May 2021, schoolchildren and staff from 17 primary schools in Munich participated in the sentinel surveillance, cohort study. Participants were tested using the Salivette® system, testing was supervised by trained school staff, and samples were processed via reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). We included 4433 participants: 3752 children (median age, 8 [range, 6-13] years; 1926 girls [51%]) and 681 staff members (median age, 41 [range, 14-71] years; 592 women [87%]). In total, 23,905 samples were processed (4640 from staff), with participants representing 8.3% of all primary schoolchildren in Munich. Only eight cases were detected: Five out of 3752 participating children (0.13%) and three out of 681 staff members (0.44%). There were no secondary cases. In conclusion, supervised Salivette® self-sampling was feasible, reliable, and safe and thus constituted an ideal method for SARS-CoV-2 mass screenings in primary schoolchildren. Our findings suggest that infectious activity among asymptomatic primary schoolchildren and staff was low. Primary schools appear to continue to play a minor role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 despite high community incidence rates.

Keywords: RT-qPCR; SARS-CoV-2; Salivette®; mass screening; primary school; saliva.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Pandemic activity and timeline of the Münchner Virenwächter 3.0 surveillance study in primary schools in the city of Munich, Germany, March–May 2021. Seven-day incidence rates were calculated in-house based on national surveillance data by the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority. RT-qPCR = reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction of saliva samples collected via the Salivette®. SARS-CoV-2 = severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
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