GUILDFORD, England (Commonwealth Union) – Since Covid-19 emerged in December 2019, the primary focus of research has been geared towards the pandemic, with more and more innovative findings have emerged where some are currently undergoing trials such as a nasally inhaled vaccines to blood tests to determine long COVID. Recently a study was conducted to determine if saliva samples could soon become a marker in forecasting severe COVID-19 for individuals, paving the way for hospitals to implement it for patients, according to a study conducted by the University of Surrey.
The study saw that amino acids in saliva can assist healthcare professionals divide patients that suffer from a severe form of COVID-19 to others with milder cases, a fact which cannot be determined by the tests that currently being used for COVID.
“It is unlikely that we will completely eradicate this awful disease from our lives, so it remains crucial that we develop tools and processes to detect Covid-19 better and, hopefully, predict how it will impact different patients differently,” said Professor Melanie Bailey, co-author of the study from the University of Surrey. She further noted the study saw that this non-invasive method of simply getting a sample of an individual’s saliva can precisely predict if the person will end up with a severe case of COVID-19, possibly giving priority for future swift medical interventions.
The research was conducted by obtaining saliva samples from 75 persons in hospital. While all persons who participated had at least a suspicion of being COVID-19 positive, only 47 of them forwarded a positive COVID-19 PCR test. From the positive individuals, 10 were classed as indicating increased severity COVID-19, 34 were marked as presenting with minor severity for COVID-19, and 3 had insufficient clinical data for severity scoring.
Exploring non-invasive COVID-19 tests is a primary focus for researchers at the University of Surrey where they have previously looked into swab samples of sebum.
