School-Aged Children Can Self-Swab.

• Position: PANDEMIC TESTING

A study that could have immediate implications for COVID-19 testing in schools found that, with age-appropriate instructions, children successfully can use a nasal swab to obtain their own COVID-19 test specimen.

The study was led by a team of clinical researchers at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and funded by the National Institutes of Health's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) Tech program.

"Having adults collect swab samples from kids is not a trivial matter in schools and other group settings," says Bruce Tromberg, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bio-engineering and lead for RADx Tech. 'The study data may surprise some and will reassure others that children as young as four years old can follow simply presented instructions and collect their own nasal specimen for COVID-19 testing."

Prior to self-swabbing, the team showed the children a 90-second how-to video designed for a young audience and provided a handout with written instructions and pictures. The children proceeded to swab their noses-four rotations of the swab against the inside of each nostril approximately one centimeter deep. Next, the health care worker used a second swab to collect a sample by swabbing each nostril of the individual children. All samples...