Saliva Is a Promising Alternative Specimen for the Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in Children and Adults.

Testing efforts for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have been burdened by the scarcity of testing materials and personal protective equipment for health care workers. The simple and painless process of saliva collection allows for widespread testing, but enthusiasm is hampered by variable performance compared to that of nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) samples. We prospectively collected paired NPS and saliva samples from a total of 300 unique adult and pediatric patients.

Saliva is a promising alternative specimen for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in children and adults.

Unlabelled: Testing efforts for SARS-CoV-2 have been burdened by the scarcity of testing materials and personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. The simple and painless process of saliva collection allows for widespread testing, but enthusiasm is hampered by variable performance compared to nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) samples. We prospectively collected paired NPS and saliva samples from a total of 300 unique adult and pediatric patients.

Human parechovirus central nervous system infections in southern California children.

Background: Human parechoviruses (hPeV) are increasingly recognized as significant etiological agents for meningoencephalitis especially in young children, but testing of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for hPeV by PCR is not routinely performed.

Methods: We used real-time reverse transcriptase PCR for detection of serotypes 1-6 in CSF samples of 440 children who underwent a lumbar puncture to exclude an infectious etiology of their clinical presentation. We then compared the prevalence and clinical presentation of children with hPeV-positive CSF with that of children with enterovirus (EV)-positive CSF.