SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern Alpha and Delta show increased viral load in saliva

King, Kylie L.; Wilson, Sloan J.; Napolitano, Justin M.; Sell, Keegan J; Rennert, Lior; Parkinson, Christopher L.; Dean, Delphine

doi:10.1101/2022.02.10.22270797

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…During the summer outbreak from Aug-Sep 2021, both non-symptomatic groups had similar positivity rates (Standard, 9.63% and Exposed, 9.90%), indicating that all community members likely experienced exposures in daily life. This trend matches observations from other communities; the majority of these infections were caused by the Delta variant ( 19 ) as confirmed by whole genome sequencing of our samples ( 20 , 21 ), which has been linked to higher levels of community transmission ( 24 ). After the Delta surge, the positivity rate for the standard testing population returned to 4.08% while the exposed positivity rate remained at 8.33%, indicating a decrease in community transmission.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…We identified two outbreaks spanning January-February 2021 and August-September 2021. From sequencing data, we determined that while the winter (Jan-Feb 2021) outbreak contained a mix of different strains (primarily Alpha and Gamma), the summer (Aug-Sep 2021) was primarily driven by the Delta variant of concern ( 19 – 21 ). Across the entire study duration, we found statistically significant differences ( p < 0.001) in the positivity rates between the local and regional communities.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implementation of a Rural Community Diagnostic Testing Strategy for SARS-CoV-2 in Upstate South Carolina

Plumb

Ham

Napolitano

et al. 2022

Front. Public Health

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By developing a partnership amongst a public university lab, local city government officials and community healthcare providers, we established a drive-through COVID-19 testing site aiming to improve access to SARS-CoV-2 testing in rural Upstate South Carolina. We collected information on symptoms and known exposures of individuals seeking testing to determine the number of pre- or asymptomatic individuals. We completed 71,102 SARS-CoV-2 tests in the community between December 2020-December 2021 and reported 91.49% of results within 24 h. We successfully identified 5,244 positive tests; 73.36% of these tests originated from individuals who did not report symptoms. Finally, we identified high transmission levels during two major surges and compared test positivity rates of the local and regional communities. Importantly, the local community had significantly lower test positivity rates than the regional community throughout 2021 (p < 0.001). While both communities reached peak case load and test positivity near the same time, the local community returned to moderate transmission as indicated by positivity 4 weeks before the regional community. Our university lab facilitated easy testing with fast turnaround times, which encouraged voluntary testing and helped identify a large number of non-symptomatic cases. Finding the balance of simplicity, accessibility, and community trust was vital to the success of our widespread community testing program for SARS-CoV-2.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementation of a Rural Community Diagnostic Testing Strategy for SARS-CoV-2 in Upstate South Carolina

Plumb

Ham

Napolitano

et al. 2022

Front. Public Health

Self Cite

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“…The TigerSaliva multiplex RT-qPCR test targets the N gene of SARS-CoV2 for diagnosis; it is a version of the EUA-approved SalivaDirect protocol . Details of the methods are available elsewhere. − Briefly, saliva is heat treated to 95 °C for 30 min. Then, 2 μL of sample are loaded using open-source sample handlers (Opentrons OT-2) into prepared plates with enzyme mix (New England Biolabs M3006B, M3002B), primers, and probes.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting COVID-19 Infected Individuals in a Defined Population from Wastewater RNA Data

et al. 2022

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Wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA has become an important tool for tracking the presence of the virus and serving as an early indicator for the onset of rapid transmission. Nevertheless, wastewater data are still not commonly used to predict the number of infected individuals in a sewershed. The main objective of this study was to calibrate a susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) model using RNA copy rates in sewage (i.e., gene copies per liter times flow rate) and the number of SARS-CoV-2 saliva-test-positive infected individuals in a university student population that was subject to repeated weekly testing during the Spring 2021 semester. A strong correlation was observed between the RNA copy rates and the number of infected individuals. The parameter in the SEIR model that had the largest impact on calibration was the maximum shedding rate, resulting in a mean value of 7.72 log 10 genome copies per gram of feces. Regressing the saliva-test-positive infected individuals on predictions from the SEIR model based on the RNA copy rates yielded a slope of 0.87 (SE = 0.11), which is statistically consistent with a 1:1 relationship between the two. These findings demonstrate that wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 can be used to estimate the number of infected individuals in a sewershed.

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“…16 While low Ct values are associated with high viral load, the lowest Ct values were observed in saliva of patients infected with the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant, followed by Alpha and Gamma, suggesting a relation between salivary viral load and transmissibility. 17 Chaudhary et al collected saliva from adult subjects with confirmed COVID-19 and without any COVID-19 symptoms. 18 In their RT-PCR experiments, salivary SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 23% of asymptomatic, 60% of postsymptomatic, and 28% of presymptomatic subjects.…”

Section: The Oral Cavity As a Potential Reservoir For Sars-cov-2mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Oral Cavity Potentially Serving as a Reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 but Not Necessarily Facilitating the Spread of COVID-19 in Dental Practice

Tsuchiya

2022

Eur J Dent

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Intraoral tissues, secretions, and microenvironments may provide severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with the conditions necessary for viral cellular entry and inhabitation. The aim of the present study is to overview the oral cavity that potentially serves as a reservoir for SARS-CoV-2, and then discuss the possibility that such oral cavity facilitates the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in dental practice. Articles were retrieved from PubMed/Medline, LitCovid, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and preprint medRxiv databases. Results of the literature search indicated that SARS-CoV-2 host cell entry-relevant receptor and virus/cell membrane fusion mediators are expressed in major and minor salivary glands, tongue, taste bud, periodontal tissue, and dental pulp, which would be a target and reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 is present in saliva and gingival crevicular fluid of COVID-19 patients. These secretions would contaminate dental aerosol and droplet with SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 inhabits periodontal pocket, gingival sulcus, and dental caries lesion, which could provide SARS-CoV-2 with a habitat. SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid is preserved in dental calculus, which may inform of the previous infection with SARS-CoV-2. Despite involvement of the oral cavity in SARS-CoV-2 transmission and infection, to date, there have been no clusters of COVID-19 in dental practice. Dental settings are much less likely to facilitate the spread of COVID-19 compared with general medical settings, which may be explained by the situation of dentistry that the number of patients to visit dental offices/clinics was decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, the characteristics of dentistry that dental professionals have maintained high awareness of viral infection prevention, adhered to a strict protocol for infection control, and been using personal protective equipment for a long time, the experimental results that dental devices generate only small amounts of aerosol responsible for the airborne viral transmission, irrigant from the dental unit contributes to the aerosol microbiota much rather than saliva, and the commonly used evacuation or suction system effectively reduces aerosol and droplet generation, and the possibility that human saliva exhibits the antiviral activity and the property to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is considered that dental treatment and oral health care can be delivered safely in the COVID-19 era.

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SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern Alpha and Delta show increased viral load in saliva

Cited by 16 publications

References 32 publications

Implementation of a Rural Community Diagnostic Testing Strategy for SARS-CoV-2 in Upstate South Carolina

Implementation of a Rural Community Diagnostic Testing Strategy for SARS-CoV-2 in Upstate South Carolina

Predicting COVID-19 Infected Individuals in a Defined Population from Wastewater RNA Data

The Oral Cavity Potentially Serving as a Reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 but Not Necessarily Facilitating the Spread of COVID-19 in Dental Practice

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