PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Skalina, Karin A
AU  - Goldstein, D Y
AU  - Sulail, Jaffar
AU  - Hahm, Eunkyu
AU  - Narlieva, Momka
AU  - Szymczak, Wendy
AU  - Fox, Amy S
TI  - Extended storage of SARS-CoV-2 nasopharyngeal swabs does not negatively impact results of molecular-based testing across three clinical platforms
AID  - 10.1136/jclinpath-2020-206738
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - Journal of Clinical Pathology
PG  - 61--64
VI  - 75
IP  - 1
4099  - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/75/1/61.short
4100  - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/75/1/61.full
SO  - J Clin Pathol2022 Jan 01; 75
AB  - With the global outbreak of COVID-19, the demand for testing rapidly increased and quickly exceeded the testing capacities of many laboratories. Clinical tests which receive CE (Conformité Européenne) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorisations cannot always be tested thoroughly in a real-world environment. Here we demonstrate the long-term stability of nasopharyngeal swab specimens for SARS-CoV-2 molecular testing across three assays recently approved by the US FDA under Emergency Use Authorization. This study demonstrates that nasopharyngeal swab specimens can be stored under refrigeration or even ambient conditions for 21 days without clinically impacting the results of the real-time reverse transcriptase-PCR testing.