2021
DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101028
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Implementation of a pooled surveillance testing program for asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections in K-12 schools and universities

Abstract: Background The negative impact of continued school closures during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic warrants the establishment of cost-effective strategies for surveillance and screening to safely reopen and monitor for potential in-school transmission. Here, we present a novel approach to increase the availability of repetitive and routine COVID-19 testing that may ultimately reduce the overall viral burden in the community. Methods We implemented a testing program … Show more

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Cited by 44 publications
(52 citation statements)
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References 41 publications
(63 reference statements)
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“…We estimated the overall cost of the program considering in the computation all reagents and supply, logistic, and personnel costs. The overall costs of the program (55,998 salivary tests from October 2020 to June 2021) were 674,080 Euro, i.e., 12 euro per individual, a cost very close to the $12.5 reported by Mendoza et al [ 14 ]. By adopting a policy of test pools larger than that used in this study, costs per test could be further reduced.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 69%
See 3 more Smart Citations
“…We estimated the overall cost of the program considering in the computation all reagents and supply, logistic, and personnel costs. The overall costs of the program (55,998 salivary tests from October 2020 to June 2021) were 674,080 Euro, i.e., 12 euro per individual, a cost very close to the $12.5 reported by Mendoza et al [ 14 ]. By adopting a policy of test pools larger than that used in this study, costs per test could be further reduced.…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 69%
“…However, the application of such a schedule would not be affordable in view of the high number of tests to be performed by laboratories and related costs. These two limitations could be overcome by adopting pooling saliva analysis, which was demonstrated to be reliable in an elementary-to-high school real-world scenario, with a 24 samples pool [ 14 ]. In our study, a pooling strategy with a two samples pool was adopted, but this approach could be implemented in the future with more samples to expedite analyses.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
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“…Despite the potential burden of regular testing, school-based COVID-19 testing has been found to enhance mitigation efforts, detect asymptomatic cases, limit in-school spread, and maximize in-person learning days. 4,[9][10][11]20 Communicating the value of testing to stakeholders--in both educational and public health terms--is critical to generating buy-in and participation. Finding testing models that are both effective and easy to implement are key to wide scale uptake.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%