Study presence of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) in the sweat of patients infected with Covid-19

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease, which started in Wuhan, Chin, has now become a public health challenge in most countries around the world. Proper preventive measures are necessary to prevent the spread of the virus to help control the pandemic. Because, SARS-CoV-2 is new, its transmission route has not been fully understood. In this study, we aimed to investigate the presence of SARS‐CoV‐2 in the sweat secretion of COVID‐19 patients. Sweat specimens of 25 COVID- 19 patients were collected and tested for SARS‐CoV‐2 RNA by Real‐time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) method. After RNA extraction and cDNA amplification, all samples were examined for the presence of ORF-1ab and N genes related to COVID-19. Results annotated by Realtime PCR machines software based on Dynamic algorithm. The results of this study showed the absence of SARS-CoV-2 in the sweat samples taken from the foreheads of infected people. Therefore, it can be concluded that the sweat of patients with COVID- 19 cannot transmit SARS-CoV-2. However they can be easily contaminated with other body liquids.

The detection dogs test is more sensitive than real-time PCR in screening for SARS-CoV-2

“…The armpit sweat was selected in our study because it contains volatile organic compounds at the normal body temperature, and it is the primary source of the body odor making it more suitable for sniffing by the detection dogs 39 . Moreover, sweat is not a route for SARS-CoV-2 excretion from infected patients 40 , rendering the sample to be non-infectious 41 .…”

SARS-CoV-2 is not found in the sweat of COVID-19 positive patients

“…The receptor is found abundantly in the eccrine and sebaceous glands [15]. In one study, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus in the sweat of infected patients was investigated, and no positive result was found [16]. This is one of the first studies which investigate sweat in COVID-19 patients.…”

Applying Behavioral Science in Combating COVID-19 at the Workplace: A Narrative Review

“…Complying with hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene, quarantine, and isolation protocols alone cannot adequately stop the spread of COVID-19 at the workplace. Studies show that SARS-Cov-2 can be spread at the workplace through contact with aerosol infested surfaces (Chan et al, 2020;Dowell et al, 2004;Fathizadeh et al, 2020;Otter et al, 2016;Whitworth, 2020). Since SARS-Cov-2 can remain on surfaces for several days, frequent disinfection of touched surfaces such as door handles, desks, chairs, computer keyboard and mouse, remote controls, and switches is needed to minimize the risk of contracting the virus at the workplace (Table 1).…”

“…Safety protocols such as handwashing or hand disinfection (Hogg & Huston, 2006;Kratzel et al, 2020;Mbakaya et al, 2017;Pittet et al, 2000), wearing of face mask (Aiello et al, 2010;Feng et al, 2020;Killingley et al, 2011), physical distancing (Brzezinski et al, 2020;Cirrincione et al, 2020;C. I. Jarvis et al, 2020;Prem et al, 2020;Tuite et al, 2020), quarantine and isolation (Briscese et al, 2020;Cava et al, 2005;Esquivel-Gómez & Barajas-Ramírez, 2018), and disinfecting objects and surfaces (Belingheri et al, 2020;Dexter et al, 2020;Fathizadeh et al, 2020;Kampf et al, 2020) can stop the spread of the virus at the workplace. Anderson et al, (2020) emphasized that adherence to the SARS-Cov-2 safety protocols can decrease the rate of transmission tremendously.…”