Yale Collaborates With NBA On Coronavirus Saliva Test

The Yale School of Public Health received emergency regulatory clearance on Saturday for a new diagnostic test for covid-19 that detects the novel coronavirus using saliva samples instead of nasopharyngeal swabs. Then he wants to know if the test can be used to detect cases in asymptomatic individuals, and he has a surprising partner: the NBA. The association’s key contribution? Lots of brooch.

Called SalivaDirect, the test is a new, flexible and inexpensive protocol that can be used by many laboratories, even if they do not have the same equipment. Since SalivaDirect is a protocol, it is not a kit that you can buy. Speak Food and drug administration, designated laboratories could follow the methodology to obtain the required components and perform the test in their laboratory according to Yale’s instructions for use. Yale will offer the protocol to laboratories free of charge.

The FDA has granted Yale a emergency use authorization for SalivaDirect this weekend. SalivaDirect is the fifth covid-19 test that uses saliva as a sample that the agency has cleared.

According to Yale, SalivaDirect is unique in three ways. First, as mentioned above, the test uses saliva samples to detect the virus, and not samples taken from nasopharyngeal swabs. Swabs are the intimidating looking sticks you see stuck in people’s noses. Yale says these swabs can be uncomfortable, a factor that discourages people from getting tested frequently and puts those who do the test at risk of getting sick. In comparison, SalivaDirect does not require any special type of swab or collection device, and can be collected in any sterile container.

Another key difference is the nucleic acid extraction step – it doesn’t. Yale says nucleic acid extraction is time consuming and expensive, and that the practice has been the subject of global supply shortages. Laboratories, scientists and public health officials expressed concern about the availability of reagents, chemicals needed to perform coronavirus testing, to several times during the pandemic.

Third, Yale maintains that its method is flexible given that it aims to work with as many variants of equipment and reagents as possible. This will allow “labs to work with what they have and avoid shortages”.

Nathan Grubaugh, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health who was part of the team that led the development of SalivaDirect, said researchers had simplified the test so that it only cost a few dollars for reagents. He said researchers expect labs to charge just $ 10 per sample.

“Large-scale testing is essential to our control efforts,” Grubaugh said in a declaration published by Yale. “If cheap alternatives like SalivaDirect can be implemented across the country, we could finally get this pandemic under control, even before a vaccine.”

After all this science, you might be wondering, where did the NBA come from? According to the Wall Street newspaperYale needed validation studies in order to receive regulatory clearance to offer its protocol more widely, especially for asymptomatic testing. The researchers aim to find out whether SalivaDirect can accurately detect asymptomatic cases or cases with people who do not have symptoms of covid-19. The validation studies meant the researchers needed spit, and the NBA, as well as the National Basketball Players Association, just offered scientists players and staff.

NBA officials contacted Yale in May after reading news coverage of the team’s work on saliva testing for covid-19 and offered to collaborate. NBA players are often tested for covid-19 and in several ways, according to the Journal. Over the past two months, teams in their home market and in the Walt Disney World bubble, where the NBA restarted its season, provided nose, mouth and saliva samples for testing.

Saliva samples are sent to Yale, while nose and mouth samples are sent to Quest Diagnostics and BioReference laboratories. Yale’s research effort on asymptomatic testing is called Surveillance with Improved Screening and Health, or RUSTLING. The Journal reports that saliva test results are being compared to nasal and oral test results from the same players and team staff, although no results are identifiable by name.

SWISH is underway and is currently testing samples of NBA staff members at Walt Disney World.

However, finding out if SalivaDirect can be used to detect asymptomatic cases may take longer than expected. As the Journal notes, no positive cases of covid-19 have been reported in the NBA bubble.

[The Wall Street Journal]