This study investigated a novel anterior nasal swab Rhinoswab™ which is designed to standardise self-collection, maximise sample uptake and improve user comfort. Combined throat and nose swabs and neat saliva samples were used as comparators.
The overall positive percentage agreement between the Rhinoswab and the combined throat and nose swab was 95.2 % at day 2 post participant recruitment and 93.3 % on day 4 post participant recruitment. This was favourable to the positive percentage agreement with saliva at the same time points.
In our study the Rhinoswab™ performed equally well in comparison to a combined throat and nose swab for the laboratory detection of SARS-CoV-2 using nucleic acid amplification techniques.